Hello and welcome to my new op weapon fixes where I choose weapons in tf2 that are too OP or OP in the hands or professional players in the tf2 community. A thing I would use as an example is the B.A.S.E Jumper before the nerf, if you remember when you could re-deploy the B.A.S.E Jumper it was a little OP in the hands of professional players making them impossible to hit with non-bullet weapons. My aim is to try to balance weapons to be useable in competitive tf2. Also this is all my own opinion, feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section and feel free to give more suggestions on balance changes.
Ah yes, the Short Circuit also a famous weapon for being incredibly annoying to spies and non-bullet based weapon. Oh how I love my Kritzkrieg Uber gone, wasted and endlessly annoyed as why valve made such an item a staple in offensive engie, and as Uncle Dane says, "The payload cart's infinite metal supply nullifies the entire balancing set of making the energy ball expensive." So one of the major balancing factor is now gone, meaning an engineer can stop a combo (demo and med pair or solider and med pair) unless they use their melee which because of the engineer having a shotgun putting him at an advantage. Not only that but the brightness of the energy ball can block vision so if the enemy is in a choke-point they can get spammed and they can't do anything except blindly shoot at wherever they think the enemy team is and the only weapon that somewhat requires aim are explosives with large radiuses but those are deleted too. Now the part on how to balance it:
Old stats:
Alt-Fire: Launches a projectile-consuming energy ball. Costs 65 metal.
No reload necessary
No random critical hits
Per Shot: -5 ammo
Uses metal for ammo
New stats:
Alt-Fire: Launches a projectile-consuming energy ball. Costs 100 metal. (or) Alt-Fire: Launches a projectile-consuming energy ball. Can only fire Once after a recharge.
No reload necessary
No random critical hits
Per Shot: -5 ammo
Uses metal for ammo
Changes and reasons:
I made the ball cost 100 metal instead of 65 metal so payload carts can 100% nullify the down side of the energy ball, another possible change if still not balanced is to change the alt fire to be like jarate or madmilk where they have a recharge time making them less OP and usable in competitive tf2.
and another change is not making the short circuit a flash bang and dim down the opacity making it more transparent and see trough.