Alrighty, so this took a while. Anyways, I know this is big, but I like writing about this stuff soo yeah. Also, I am fully aware that this original post was top worst out of all slots, but I liked what people were doing with doing every weapon slot. Anyways, I hope you get something from reading this. Enjoy.
Scout
Primary - Baby Face's Blaster.
Do I need to say anything about this? Not using double jump is just a bad idea, and this weapon punishes you for double jumping. It takes 100 damage to get full speed, and you need to take, what is it 15? 25 damage? It is absurd. Go with stock, you have enough movement speed already. Clip size is also a big downside, which can decide your fate in some situations. Personally, most of my competitive TF2 experience is as scout, and although I am not the greatest player, I can assure you that double jump is invaluable. If you like the way the Baby Face’s plays, then go for it, but this is not a casual look at weapons, and in my opinion, this is purely a downgrade to stock.
Secondary - Bonk! Atomic Punch
Invincibility! Wow what could be the trade-off? Well, let us think about the purpose of this drink. I think the first thing that comes to mind is getting past sentries. The problem with this is that you still take knockback. Knockback is the main reason this drink is not usable. It's whole purpose of using your brief invincibility to get behind enemy lines or pass by sentries is almost always nullified if the enemy knows what they're doing, AND you get slowed after the effect based on damage you would have taken. This item just delays the inevitable. Also, we cannot overlook the inability of using the pistol, which is amazing for finishing off enemies. Pistol is used by most competitive players, as it allows you to deal a decent amount of dps at a medium range, and if you run out of scattergun ammo and need to deal with someone, the pistol is amazing.
Melee - The Sandman
How I miss the days of Sandman and Guillotine... But enough crying over spilt mad milk, this is a review on their viability currently! So, scout melees have one actual purpose, and that is utility. Nobody ever uses them to deal damage, you have a shotgun. So, my second choice here would be the candy cane. It makes it possible for you to be one shot by explosives. But the upside is ok. The same cannot be said about The Sandman. The -15 health makes you weaker to everything, unlike the candy cane, and its upside is almost useless in every scenario. Why is slowing people helpful? Running away? Just improve at dodging with your given mobility, dummy! Making it easier to hit them? Uhhh do some mge matches and work on your aim. I fail to see why to use this over wrap assassin.
Soldier
Primary - Liberty Launcher
First off, I should make it clear that jumping weapons like rocket jumper or sticky jumper will not be considered here as they are technically training tools. Anyways, Liberty launcher is easily the worst. 40% faster rocket speed is a crutch honestly, if you work on your aim with stock, there is no need for this buff. -25% damage from rocket jumps? Use the gunboats if you want to go flying around the map. 25% is not that much when it comes to rocket jumps, and without gunboats you will not be doing long rollouts anyways. And the damage nerf... See therefore I will never use this weapon. 25% less damage on each rocket. I do not think I need to say more. This could mean killing a scout could take a third rocket. Even though you have one more rocket in a clip, I would much rather just kill them right away with stock.
Secondary - Righteous Bison
Its glory days are over and have been for a while. It is now a shell of its former self that feels as though you are poking people with. Before it was great against enemies who were retreating, but not so much anymore. And who really cares about infinite ammo honestly. I am not going to say anything else, this one is too obvious.
Melee - Stock Shovel
Why would you ever use this? You have a strange one? We do not care about stranges here, we are looking purely at stats! That being said, this is just a normal melee, and because it's a normal melee you're saying "I don't want crits when I rocket jump!" or "I don't want to whip my teammates to get speed boosts and utilize the better range!" or "I don't care about retreating quickly!" Soldier has a lot of exciting options for melee to switch up your gameplay. Do not be boring, pick a fun one.
Pyro
Primary - Phlogistinator
Come on man, the only reason you would ever use this is if you are an evil W+M1 pyro. Not only is that a boring way to play with almost nowhere to go in terms of skill with, but it makes everyone else hate you too. Sure, Phlog + a medic buddy = a fun time spawncamping, but for your average pyro, the INABILITY to airblast is a price you will not want to pay. Used to counter any classes that relied on projectiles to a certain extent with any other flamethrower, but then you decided you wanted crits (Which are activated by taunting which gives anyone with a brain enough time to prepare your certain death) and so you are now countered by them. Have fun dying repeatedly and having your team wish you could extinguish them and defend buildings and your teammates from rockets/grenades.
Secondary - Gas Passer
Absolutely useless. Cannot refill it by going to resupply cabinet, if you deal no damage it takes 60 seconds, and when you do have it, all it does is make people burn from anything. That’s it. No thanks, I think I will stick to my flare gun or shotgun. I feel like pyro gets a bad wrap honestly. Everyone just calls him the W+M1 class, and although it can feel like that sometimes, when a pyro uses flare gun and is good at it, or reflects extremely well, I feel like they deserve more respect than they get.
Melee - Sharpened Volcano Fragment
Same thing as Soldier, except now there is something worse than even a generic melee weapon. Why would you use this? You can set people on fire with your flamethrower already man, no need to do so with melee, let alone deal with the damage down which is 20% less... Powerjack, Back Scratcher, even Axtinguisher offer at least a side grade. This weapon does look cool, but it matters what is on the inside, not the outside.
Demoman
Primary – Loose Cannon
Now this hurts me. I love the Loose Cannon. Before I continue, I will say that I am going to categorize demoknight as a fully separate class here. Anyways, back to the Loose Cannon. This really hurts me to admit, but the loose cannon falls behind in almost every way from other grenade launchers. Iron Bomber is so close to stock that I consider the only real other side grade to be the Loch n’ Load, which is not getting a spot as worst weapon for a few reasons. Number one for me, is that if you play hybrid knight a lot, Loch n’ Load is really good, allowing you to destroy sentries fairly quickly, or finish off fleeing enemies. I prefer stock grenade launcher when I play hybrid knight due to my muscle memory getting completely messed up when I use Loch n’ Load. The Loose Cannon is here because its dps is just so unreliable. In lazypurple’s recent video, he mentioned that the Loose Cannon is a sort of replacement for the stickybomb launcher, and although it is true to an extent, it is just so unreliable, and I mean, it is really fun, it’s a great weapon to play around with, loose cannon jumps are awesome, add a tide turner and the Claidheamh-Mòr for insane mobility and a super fun Demoknight time. If you get great at this weapon and can abuse double donks, you’ll be a force to be reckoned with, but it takes so long to get to that point and the damage won’t ever be as reliable as stock. Sorry Loose Cannon.
Secondary – Scottish Resistance
This weapon is for those of you who like staring at hallways all game. The looking at stickies to detonate them is a big downside in my opinion. When I am looking at a sticky trap, I like to have it at the edge of my screen, so that my instant death trap doesn’t take my full attention, and I can focus on the rest of the game instead. Now, besides this, which is my second least favourite part of this weapon, the 0.8 second longer priming time is just stupid. Sticky spam, as annoying as it is, can save your life sometimes. The best way to use the Stickybomb launcher is to mix traps and sticky spam. You have 8 bombs in that thing, if you run out of grenades, you have got it to fall back on. Now, if you are using the Scottish Resistance, you do not have this option. A second in a game like TF2 is a lot of time, and you cannot use that time waiting for a bomb to prime in order to kill someone who is running at you. Unless they have no brain, they will get around it. Basically, as you can see, I think stock demoman is the best.
Melee – Ullapool Caber
This weapon used to be fun. One shotting light classes was not unbalanced due to the massive damage you would take, and the loss of the explosive ability on the weapon. Currently, the weapon is unusable. I see literally one actual use for this weapon, and that is jumping with it. If you just crouch on the ground at swing at your feet, this thing can actually launch you pretty far up, but come on man, just get better at sticky jumping so you can use a better melee. Now, one thing to remember is that SOMETIMES this weapon will kill light classes. I do not know what makes it happen, but it will deal that little bit of extra damage, but unless that becomes the norm, this weapon will be the worst melee option for Demoman. As a heads-up, I will not consider this for Demoknight, as it would easily be last, and I would like to rate the swords.
Demoknight
Primary – N/A
I am not considering this hybrid knight. If you are playing Demoknight use booties or bootlegger. As a brief answer for hybrid knight, Loose Cannon once again.
Secondary – Tide Turner
I know this section is going to be controversial. I need to give a warning right now that NONE of Demoman’s shields are bad, literally none of them. Now, that being said, the reason I put Tide Turner here is not because I am ignorant towards the existence of trimping, no, in fact I believe I can trimp fairly well, and I use this shield often. The reason this is here is because unless you are trimping, and doing it consistently and well, this shield will have significantly less value than the others, giving much less resistance, no crits on a full distance charge, and the ability to have your entire charge ruined by some damage. As far as I have seen, the general Demoknight player base are not slope-abusing trimp gods who soar across the map, I can’t do it either, or because of this I find myself using chargin’ targe 90% of the time.
Melee - Claidheamh-Mòr
As I said in my paragraph about the Loose Cannon, this weapon is fun with that trimping mobility style build, But I cannot bring myself to putting other weapons lower than this. The damage taken from everything while this weapon is active is detrimental to any player and is the sole reason this is a bad weapon. Here is a quick little example. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but with this weapon, a shield, and boots, you have 200 health. Now, you take 15% more damage from everything, making your effective health equal to 170. As a Demoknight, who is supposed to get into the enemy’s face and hopefully live, this weapon goes against the whole purpose. Now, to be fair, the Tide Turner, which you will probably be using with this, counteracts the damage when going against fire and explosives, but man, you’re in melee range, melees deal more damage, and let’s be real, bullets are a Demoknight’s real worst enemy.
Heavy
Primary – Brass Beast
This was between the Huo-Long Heater and this. Personally, I think that the Huo-Long Heater gives at least two benefits. One is that it is very good at being a cart heavy, due to the ammo spent not being an issue, and so the only downside is 10% less damage, which keep in mind is a lot, but heavy can still melt people (haha fire melts) with this weapon nonetheless, and in comparison to the downsides of the Brass Beast is nothing. The one other good part of the Huo-Long Heater is NOT dealing with spies, remember, they can jump, and most of them know that by now. Its true second use is literally just combos with sun on a stick, or flare gun pyros. That is all. Now, to the Brass Beast. The 50% slower spin-up speed is so bad it makes playing heavy an idle clicker game, couple that with the 60% slower move speed and you’ve got a weapon that makes you feel like you’re playing a clicker game, or are literally becoming a sentry gun. Being a cart heavy is this weapon’s one ok part, but honestly as I said, use Huo-Long Heater for that if that is fun for you. Brass beast does deal a huge amount of damage, and makes you take less, but by the time you would get to use those bonuses you are usually already dead.
Secondary – Buffalo Steak Sandvich
Come on, there is only one type of person that uses this weapon, and that is the JoJo’s heavy running around spamming ORAORAORAORA in chat while he punches people before dying in about three seconds. This weapon is so inferior to every other secondary literally only because you lose your primary. Heavy’s primary is so good, and your main source of damage, and ditching that for literally just mini-crits, and more movement speed, at the cost of not only the loss of the primary but also 20% more damage from everything. This sandvich is only good for healing others as it is the same as the normal Sandvich for that.
Melee – Eviction Notice
This is only for JoJo’s fans as well (which I never understood because Star Platinum does not use brass knuckles) and if you use it for any other reason you have probably lost your mind. This weapon does 26 damage on a normal hit, for the bonus of swinging faster, and gaining move speed on hit (and a bit just normally). This would be enough of a side grade, with clear downsides and upsides, but then there is the health drain. This weapon drains 5 health per second to a minimum of 100, and this is MAX health, so you need to wait for it to regen after using this weapon. It is so bad I have never used it past the one time since the nerf.
Engineer
Primary – Pomson 6000
I almost wish this were not here so I could form a controversial opinion on which out of the others is the worst, but this is undoubtedly the worst one. Pretty much the only upside of this weapon is that you can bully Medic and Spy players. The clip size nerf, and damage nerf to buildings is not that bad, but the real reason this weapon sucks is because it is not a shotgun. The rescue ranger is so broken that it does not matter that you are almost defenseless with it, the same cannot be said for this abomination of red and grey metal. Because it isn’t a shotgun, and it’s really awkward to use, you’re basically defenseless with this thing, only being able to poke unfortunate souls from a long range, and take some of the enemy Spy’s cloak or the Medic’s uber with you to the grave.
Secondary – Pistol
The second stock weapon on my list, but this is a fun one. Engineer’s secondaries, (excluding the broken mess of the Wrangler) although there are only two, they are now balanced. Personally, I suck with the short circuit, but it can be used to great extent to counter projectile classes and works well on offense on payload due to the metal from the cart, or battle engi. Pistol is nice, giving you another form of defense other than your shotgun or sentry, (or wrench for spies I guess) in order to finish off lower enemies or poke. Now, I said this was one of scouts best secondaries earlier, but with Engineer unfortunately, even though it is a good weapon, I can’t say it’s better than the short circuit, and obviously neither can even compare to the unrivaled power of the Wrangler.
Melee – Southern Hospitality
If you did not see this coming, then you probably do not know much about current engineer. Uncle Dane, the canonical engineer from Team Defense Fortress the Second, said that the bleed is not going to help, because the downside of no random critical hits, which you are more likely to get as an engineer due to most of the work being done by your sentry, and melees having a higher crit chance (this is true by the way) means you won’t be able to one shot people. Now, I hate talking about random crits when it comes to balance, but I need to mention them here. On servers without random crits, this weapon is actually a pretty balanced wrench, the only downside only showing up in certain scenarios, but as long as random crits are a thing, due to the other wrenches all being pretty viable, this one is the worst for me.
Medic
Primary – Overdose
So, a warning for medic. I am by no means a medic player. I have played every class extensively, but medic is my least favorite. Anyways. I believe that the Overdose is the worst primary for medic as the upside is honestly kind of weak, and the downside is a bit much. It is tough to decide between the Overdose and the Syringe gun, but my reasoning is that the Overdose seems to be mainly a utility weapon, like the Crusader’s Crossbow. But the Crusader’s Crossbow outshines every other weapon, that when you use the Overdose, you’re kind of indecisive between if you want defense or utility as a primary, but the Overdose is not even a good mix of the two. The stock syringe gun is clearly pure defense, and if you want defense then honestly you should use the Blutsauger, but anyways, the Syringe gun is still decent self defense, and the overdose’s upside to compensate for that is something that can easily be achieved by learning to surf damage.
Secondary – Vaccinator
I honestly wanted to put the Quick-Fix here, but I cannot for a few reasons. One is that the Quick-Fix can be abused to an extreme extent to rollout a medic way faster than usual, it is banned in most competitive for that reason. It is also exceptionally good at keeping a team healed up and builds uber quite fast due to how the overheal nerf works. Now, do not get me wrong, the Vaccinator is powerful, but I think that even though a Vaccinator medic who knows what he’s doing, and a good soldier, for example, can wipe a server, the downside of not having the kritz uber, stock uber, or even Quick-Fix uber (which is very nice at healing up a team as well, and heals the medic) makes this weapon too unreliable. It is very good in certain situations. In a scenario where the enemy team has good snipers, heavies, or other stacks of one damage type, this weapon is amazing, and a good player can even make it useful against a wide array of damage types. But once again, I must mention uber. Come on guys, 8 seconds of invulnerability, guaranteed critical hits, or knockback immunity and extreme healing? I cannot give that up for 4 mini ubers.
Melee – Amputator
This one is honestly not that hard of a decision. Solemn vow isn’t very good, but the downside is not that intense, still allowing you to one shot demos, pyros, and below with a random crit, which medics are very prone to receiving after healing for a long time, which is why I feel it appropriate to mention them here. Amputator’s inability to one shot those two classes is dangerous, and the inability to two shot most light classes is also a big downside. But here comes the real problem. The main upside is useless, and the secondary upside (+3 health per second on wearer WHILE ACTIVE) is almost useless due to you needing to have it out. I get why you need to have it out, and it’s to survive while doing your shitty heal taunt because you can’t manage your teammates’ health properly and need an easy way to do it, and what is your punishment for that? Death. You will die if you use this. Not to mention the ramp-up needed to benefit from the +3 health per second, which is cancelled if you take any damage. I do not think I really need to convince you further. Ubersaw and Vita-Saw are the kings, saying anything else is denial.
Sniper
Primary – Classic
I hear a lot of people Piss on the Sydney Sleeper (see what I did there 😉) but it is not actually that bad of a weapon. I personally cannot stand it, as I really like getting headshots, but I can understand why people would choose the Sydney Sleeper over stock, and I can see its advantages and disadvantages. But then there is the Classic. The only reason you should use this is if you like seeing people explode, but even then, just lay down a sticky trap as demo and watch it happen to like 3 people at once? This weapon’s downsides are way too extreme for its legitimate single real upside. What is that upside you may ask? Oh, it is the fact that you can charge outside of zoom. That’s it. And in return, no headshots unless fully charged, Shots leave a tracer, and 10% less damage on bodyshots. This weapon is too bad to even be considered in actual use. It’s fun, probably won’t be changed because it exists as a nostalgic item, but because of that, it’s going in the garbage for me.
Secondary – Razorback
This is the backpack that we all know is probably the worst for sniper, but we put on because GOD DAMNIT ANOTHER SPY BACKSTABBED ME. I have had a few instances where I hear a spy uncloak behind me, and flick around and headshot him. This proves that there are options against spies besides… Dying? If you do not have razorback. Now, the razorback actually has a weird downside I’ve found, (not statistical) in that you get comfortable in the idea that this will keep you safe from spies, and as you are charging up your shot to get that damn heavy who keeps killing your team with his medic, you get shot three times with a stock revolver, or twice with amby or diamondback. It is a guilty pleasure I guess you could say. It is easy for me to tell you to simply listen to your game, but come on, 99% of sniper players are listening to some sort of music, and because of this we use a weapon that we know is bad, but we use it because it’s easy. Anyways, statistically this weapon’s downside is too harsh for its upside in that supposing you have a good medic, this weapon destroys the use of his overheal, making your prior worst nightmare, spies, into a slightly less scary thing, but snipers a real threat.
Melee – Shahanshah
Sniper does not have many unlockable melee weapons, and most are not that exciting, but this one for me is the worst. I’m going to keep this brief because my reasoning is simple, and the stats of this weapon are also simple. Basically, by the time you make use of its upside, your health is already low to a point where getting in melee range is dangerous. That’s really it to this weapon. I personally stick to Bushwacka or stock, and tribalman’s shiv can even be useful, but this, I haven’t used in years.
Spy
Primary – Enforcer
Well we’re here, the final class. I have written much more than I thought I would, but for now I must continue, the finish line is just in sight! Anyways, back to the purpose of this thing. This weapon is a fallen star. I remember when this weapon was actually fun, and useful, some would say overpowered even, but now, thanks to spy’s diverse choice of useful revolvers, offering skill based crits, less skill based crits, consistent damage, or pure utility, this once glorious gun has fallen into uselessness basically only because of the upside only really helping in killing snipers, or vacc medics, but even then, you literally have a vacc medic’s worst nightmare in your pocket… A KNIFE. This weapon is not usable. It is essentially a straight downgrade to stock besides killing snipers. I really hope this weapon gets changed somehow if there ever is another update.
Secondary – Red-Tape Recorder
Writing about this is almost the most useless thing I have ever done. This weapon is literally only useful if you are fighting an oblivious gunslinger engi. That is it. I do not even know why I’m writing about this, this weapon is a joke, with its only interesting property being an easter egg. I’m just gonna end this one here.
Melee – Big Earner
Ah the bread and butter knife of spy. Unfortunately, this weapon is only good at spreading butter, and not particularly good at stabbing backs. Well, truthfully, it is fine at stabbing backs, but the downside is too crazy. All of you should know what 100 health means, but if you do not, let me remind you. One pill? Dead. One rocket at a close enough distance? Dead. Soldier being one of the most popular classes in the game, this downside is immense, same with demo, and although the upside is fun, as all other knives can boast, the downside is the worst of all of the knives for what it does. Kunai gets away with the 70 max health because of the overheal bonus, but this weapon’s method of living is giving you some movement speed and cloak. Sorry, but if I want to think I’m a pro chainstabber I’ll go with YER (Your Eternal Reward) or Kunai. This weapon used to be my favorite knife when I was learning, but now I have left it in the dust.
Watch – Cloak and Dagger
Like the Red-Tape Recorder but not quite as bad, I’ve always seen this as the absolute worst. I may be biased here, but in my opinion sitting in one spot is a sure-fire way to get killed, or end up doing nothing waiting for the perfect opportunity, and I get that that is the purpose of this watch, but spy is most effective when playing an active playstyle, and this watch discourages it not only with the upside, but also in the downside which makes it use a lot of your cloak meter. This is my most biased answer here, as I honestly think that each of these watches has their ups and downs, but this one for me is too against what I see as the ideal playstyle for a Spy.
If you made it this far, I sincerely appreciate you for reading this. I put a lot of effort and time into it, and all I want is for people to see it. Seriously, thank you for reading. Let me know if you want me to write about any other TF2-related thing, I probably have an opinion on it.