Since the TF2 team's recent blog post would seem to indicate that they are ever-so-bravely going to take another stab at balancing this game, might I bend someone's ear about the Beggar's Bazooka?
It charges up shots as its primary feature, but that's not even what it's best for. It's a 20-shot spam cannon. It's often an upgrade, you guys. You don't need accuracy when you have big HP and an infinite clip so you can overpower other chumps and sentries up close. It makes the soldier
more effective as a pocket due to the huge increase in firepower. Soldier was already an excellent pocket, I have no idea why anyone saw fit to make this combo even more powerful. Not even the heavy got this treatment, all his primary unlocks make him a worse pocket.
The Beggar's already does huge burst damage around corners for near-instant kills. Does it really need to do more than that? The regular launcher is most efficient when you load up all 4 shots in between firing a volley. Why is the beggar's allowed to break this by being
more efficient with less time investment? It makes it completely contrary to the beggar's original idea of carefully picking the right moment to load and unleash, and instead makes the class even more mindless.
Yes, it might be underpowered if all it had was just charging up and ambushing, but might I suggest an alternative buff? Make the beggar's heal you when you pick up ammo packs, like the Persian Persuader, except you keep the ammo you get too. It makes it more of a roamer ambush tool, less about the pocketing, and plays on the scavenger hobo theme. The more ammo boxes you scavenge from the battlefield, the better you do.
Yes, it's overlapping with the black box's role somewhat, but since when did the black box need that nerf that it just got in the Gunmettle update in the first place? Yes, it was a nerf. Getting the super-generous +20HP on a perfect hit at point-blank or on a critical hit is not "skill indexing" it. How was a flat +15 HP per shot OP? People never stopped complaining about that gun, and I can't ever figure out why. It did
less damage to everyone because it was missing a rocket! The stupid +15HP was hardly a replacement for a pocket medic.
That's not even mentioning other broken stuff like that hot-garbage -- the cowmangler. I'm not even here to post about just the rocket primaries specifically, I just want to remind everyone that This game still has a ways to go before I could say it's "balanced."
I'm just going to link to
another relevant thread about the same thing. This thread is almost redundant.
TL;DR click on link. Weapons is whack, yo.
Beggar's Bazooka and other balance problems.