There's a lot of valid points made Abject, and mostly i agree with you. Im also a "returning veteran" And i used to play a lot on Lethal zone VSH servers and they had a lot of tweaks to each class to make them viable on their own and i think it's a good place to mention these. Brace yourself, there's a lot to read.
Mantreads
The extra rocket jump force provided by these is absurd and should be completely removed in my opinion. Basically gives soldier access to super jump with no cooldown.
Extra damage taken from blast jumps,when compared to gunboats, barely matters as most soldiers are running liberty launcher and most maps seem to be updated to have more health pickups than before.
Most rounds that get to the endgame are dominated by mantreads soldiers, hale struggling to catch them.
They make catching hale off guard with the mg way easier as soldier can swoop in from across the map, out of vision and hearing range.
Mantreads already has reduced fall damage, 1k stomp damage and increased air control, why does it need anything more?
Mantreads definitely deserve a nerf when it comes to extra pushing force. Market gardener soldiers are a big problem to saxton hale, especially HHH and without a doubt, this should be the nerf.
Damage potential between the classes
This one should be pretty obvious, spies and soldiers can rack up thousands upon thousands of damage each round, meanwhile heavy requires babysitting from engineers and medics,
pyro’s lackluster damage output is very apparent now that his utility has been gutted.
I would like to see higher base damage on most classes main weapons. Damage scaling of mg and backstabs might be worth looking into, although I don't feel strongly about this one.
Some classes will always be and even should be better at dealing damage than others, but that doesn't mean we can't level the playing field a bit.
Damage fall off for spies and trolldiers would be nice, where instead of % max hp it would deal % current hp, with a minimum of <x> dmg (let's say 700 for example).
Below I've listed my opinions on the class and a buff/nerf concept. I think the goal should be that every class is able to do well on their own without help of any other classes and should be exciting to play.
Note: I'm often mentioning Lethal zone VSH servers, which were closed in 2017. They've nailed a lot of balancing issues and I'm suggesting a lot of things which were on their server. Also LZ = Lethal Zone
Now, other classes and builds:
Scout
I think scout right now, is in a very good spot, where he could be played as a good dmg dealer with scattergun/shortstop, cleaver/winger, or as a support with force of nature madmilk sandman. There's no need to change anything here
Soldier
Soldier without market gardener is a strong class, with many viable builds, with plenty of viable rocket launchers to choose from and good secondaries. Even if trolldier is nerfed, Soldier is still pretty strong altough, I would like to see a buff for shotgun soldier:
Lethal zone server solution
-Dealing 200 dmg with shotgun grants 1 homing rocket for soldier. Homing rocket deals 60-70% damage, and is toggled with MMB (Middle mouse button). This buff is very exciting for shotgun soldiers, giving him another interesting option other than banners/boats.
Pyro
Is currently shit, the only good option for damage dealing right now is dragon's fury and i know, that pyro isn't necessarily a dmg dealer, but the only other playstyle as a support was nerfed into the ground and is straight up unplayable. Any buff is pretty much welcome at this point and I think I have the answer on how to buff him
-Airblast should cost about 40 ammo both for stock and degreaser
Lethal zone server solution
-Shotgun, while dealing more than 50 dmg, applies after burn for x seconds. This allows pyros to deal a tad more damage and doesn't overbuff the class
Demoman
This class is so fun to play and currently all the builds on him are pretty much viable. Unfortunately, against any good hale, demonikght stands no chance at all and I think demoman could receive some small buffs.
-Using Grenade launcher and shield should give crits instead of mini-crits. Hitting clean pipes on hale is challenging and minicrits do underwhelming damage (135). The only issue this buff brings is crit loose cannon, which does insane knockback and i think it should be the only weapon that still has minicrits with shield equipped.
Lethal zone server solution
-Free non damaging hit provided with shield does not destroy the shield, allowing demoman to still charge
Heavy
Is propably worst class on its own. It only sees play, when the server is full and engineers set up amplifier / medics give him ubercharge.
Heavy should be a force to be reckoned with, and on Lethal Zone server, he defenitely was, therefore I propose a buff:
-Damage done with Shotgun restores 100% of the damage done as health to heavy, On full health, giving it as a overheal with a max of 600Hp (Original number was 1400Hp on LZ VSH which was absurd), allowing heavy to survive 2 hits from saxton hale.
Engineer
Very strong support class, with a capability of doing 9k dmg (telefrag) but the truth is, he's defensless against hale and relies heavily on help of other classes, keeping the hale off him. Back on LZ VSH Engineer could stun saxton for 1 second (bonk stun, not allowing him to attack) with short circuit hit and I think that this buff would put engineer on the map (Note that at the time on LZ VSH, engineer did not have passive metal gaining, which meant he couldn't fire endlessly with short circuit and needed to switch to widowmaker to regain metal)
Medic
The buffs medic currently has (41% uber on start, uber on hit with syringe/crossbow, quick fix self healing on uber and mirror blast jumps and charges) are very very good. Altough, while he's left 1v1 against hale he is pretty weak, almost unwinnable and therefore I have a buff proposition (altough it is not needed)
LZ VHS solution
-Medigun was able to "heal" saxton hale, applying marked for death on medic and gaining "energy meter". Energy was used to revive other dead players, 100% is exactly 1 player revived (Dead players would leave graves same as in Mann vs Machines). Using uber allowed medic to revive players without energy. Very strong buff which is not needed, but if added, would make medic a high value target for saxton.
Sniper
Sniper rifles problem will be mentioned later. Other than that, I think Hunstman sniper is fine balancing wise.
Spy
Spy is a risky high damage dealer, and the only change I would make is mentioned at the beginning.
Lacking weapon choices
Ties to the previous point. Lot of weapons are completely useless or outshined by the few actually good weapons.
Sometimes unique weapons function in the same way, when they could be more distinct (e.g. mediguns, flare gun and detonator).
Part of the fun of vsh are the wacky weapon changes. Not everything needs to become the meta either; it would just be nice to have more variety in playstyles.
I would especially like stock weapons to be better. New player friendly vsh?
Definitely agree, a lot of weapons are disabled, and I don't see reason why they should be disabled (BBF or soda popper for example)
Earlier I've mentioned how I would buff some of the weapons, to make them see more play and I don't necessarily see a reason to buff other weapons, since a lot of them are already in atleast "okay" spot.
Taunt crits are boring
Over the years I've come to see taunt crits as a half assed solution to the lack of damage in most classes.
Basically requires you to own a toggleable action taunt to be used effectively.
I'd rather see higher base damage and/or less damage fall off on weapons so they can deal more consistent damage over time instead of having to stop for a taunt to get a burst of damage.
Then we could start seeing more value from things like crit a cola, could even make buff banner give full crits.
I actually think taunt crits are a good solution for damage lack in VSH. Altough it definitely leans to pay to play, crit taunts provide risk reward gameplay, the closer you are to hale, the higher the risk, and the higher the reward. It's a core mechanic, and if to remove taunt crits, it would need A LOT of balancing changes which means a lot of testing. Doable but it would require a lot of resources and given the fact, that community is not that big, I don't think this taunt crit will see change in the near future.
Goomba stomp
I don't get why this exists at all... People shouldn't be bouncing off of hale's head. Hale should not need to be cautious in the slightest when jumping at enemies on high ground. Crevice is actually ruined by the existence of goomba.
It's also extremely punishing for less experienced hales, especially the one's that don't super jump around too much. Without goomba there's more value in picking mantreads for the stomp damage.
Goomba stomp at 1.5k damage was absurd, but right now it is a fun mechanic that adds a layer to the gameplay. I see your argument about picking manntreads, but they already deal more damage than goomba stomp and also why even go for a stomp with mantreads when market gardener exists?
Sniper
He has it all, damage, range, knockback and wall climb. Apparently there was some adjustment to the knockback but I haven't really felt too much of a difference.
A single sniper shot still absolutely kills hale's momentum in the air. Perhaps we should go back to having to hit our headshots...
Wall climb is limited in theory by the self damage and the healing block but in reality snipers is able to travel quite a distance by wall climbing as many maps feature large walls that are easily climbable.
HHH has a limit to how many times he can wall climb until having to touch the ground, maybe implement a limit like this to sniper. Mobility should be sniper's weak suit.
I agree, Sniper is the second if not the biggest issue in VSH. He's broken on Large maps, Strong on Medium maps, and good on small maps. The problem is definitely the mobility of sniper, and
Lethal Zone VSH had a great solution to the sniper problem.
-Bushwacka was the only melee sniper weapon that allowed climbing the walls but also removed the 3x damage buff on body shots.
This change forces the sniper to make a choice, either you are mobile and can escape from saxton until the help arrives or you are unmobile high damage dealer.
Engineer
Metal regen makes setting up brain dead easy. With it there's barely any downside to running an amp.
I dislike amplifier for variety of reasons; paired with multiple heavies it causes an insane amount of knockback and damage, it has wonky interactions with projectiles and it has enough health to tank a hit from hale without needing to be upgraded.
I think metal regen should be removed, and widowmaker metal regen should be added to base shotgun. It would force engineer to either play more aggresively to build a lvl 2/3 sentry or setup a dispenser.
I know, all that I've said a lot to take at a time, but I strongly advise anyone that is reading this to think about buff suggestions to the classes. Again, every class should be very exciting to play, instead of "ugh my main is full".
