[Fides]

Soldier Melee: The Equalizer

Back when your father and grandfather played Team Fortress 2, being bad at the game was so shameful, they would rage-quit (a lengthy, painful process that involved pulling burning coal from the computer’s furnace). Now, thanks to modern-day updates like these, there’s finally a good excuse. You didn’t misread that sentence: losing is now a strategy.

This melee-slot pickaxe becomes more deadly the more damage you take, letting you move faster and hit harder the more wounds you endure. Get close enough to death, and you will become Death himself.

It probably hits weakly at full health, but much more at low health. I see myself taking it over the shovel, for sure.

Soldier Secondary: The Buff Banner

Admit it: Every so often, you suspect you’re carrying your team. But other than rage-quitting, what can you do about it? How about motivating those lazy sons of bitches to put on their war face and fight?

Enter the morale-boosting Buff Banner. When this secondary-slot item is equipped, any damage you deal boosts a rage meter that, when full, lets you pull out your bugle and sound a call to war! For the next 14 seconds, every teammate who rallies round your flag will deal mini-crits.

It feels like a Kritzkrieg in that it'll be something you swap in and out often, but if there's a certain spot that there's a deadlock around, it'll be a nice thing to toss down there. I like my shotgun more, though.

New Demoman Secondary (lol): Scottish Resistance

Get your thinking pants on, because the Scottish Resistance is the thinking Demoman's sticky bomb launcher. Trading offensive capability for increased defensive power, the SR can lay down twice as many sticky bombs, as well as destroy enemy sticky bombs.

But hold on, thinking fans—there’s more! The SR lets you detonate specific groups of bombs instead of having to set them off all at once. The SR detonates whichever group of bombs the player is looking at, letting you control which clusters blow, and when. You’ll be able to lay more traps and guard multiple areas at a time.

But all this awesome thinking man stuff comes at a price, just like real thinking. The SR is less useful for air-bursts and close range combat, thanks to longer priming rate (0.4 seconds) per bomb.

Awesome for sure, as a defensive weapon. It'll take a lot of work at getting it just right, but I can see it being even better for the defensive Demoman. Not useful for the offensive one, though.