Declined Versus Saxton Hale Melee Heavy

[SolwayShulvaric]

I know it's a meme but can we make melee Heavy a thing? The Buffalo Steak and Warrior's Spirit can have their damage vulnerability removed or exchanged for taking less damage, and a greater speed bonus, allowing Heavy to move around. This could result in a greater amount of mobile heavies, and Shotguns could be buffed by heavy being able to make use of them.

 

[Chris TCC]

For anyone interested, here are the current modifications we have on heavy for VSH.

Heavy​

Killing Gloves of Boxing​

Weapon disabled. Replaced with the Gloves of Running Urgently.

Fists of Steel​

Weapon disabled. Replaced with Fists.

Gloves of Running Urgently​

On active: faster movement speed. Increased damage vulnrability.

Holiday Punch​

Removes any stun when hit by the boss.

All Miniguns​

+15% damage boost when healed by a medic.

All Shotguns​

Some damage returned as health.

about the warrior's spirit. The damage vulnerability being removed would be too big a buff imo. The extra damage is quite good, and not having a downside is difficult to justify imo.
The possibility of changing the crits to mini-crits for the buffalo steak is there, but I'm not sure about balance. I think it's possible to work with however, because taunting gives you some crits, and giving away your shotgun's healing for a damage utility might be good.

As far as I know, heavy is rather weak in VSH if he's on his own. When paired with an engineer or an organized team, he becomes significantly stronger. The main problem that I see is buffing the weapons that make heavy too powerful when he's at his best. The optimal way of balancing the weapons would be to buff his solo play without touching his teamwork-play.
I am by no means experienced in balancing weapons, just dropping my opinion on this.

 

[SolwayShulvaric]

The Warrior's Spirit has a lesser damage vulnerability than the GRU from what I know. TWS's Damage Vulnerability doesn't do anything by itself, as you still die in the same amount of hits. The Buffalo Steak's Damage Vulnerability allows all bosses ( Except the Easter Bunny ) to one shot you when combined with TWS, making melee heavy on par with the GRU or Eviction Notice which are both terrible for this purpose. The reasoning I suggested the removal for the damage vulnerability is due to the fact that this is a meme loadout, that is currently worse than normal heavy and could legit use the buff. The "Greater Damage" Isn't too much, especially since all it takes is a swing speed penalty, and it would be more balanced.

 

[SolwayShulvaric]

also, Hybrid knight needs to be nerfed. The eyelander lets you have 210 hp, letting you survive 2 boss hits when a shield is equipped. So If heavy isn't allowed to survive a hit, than Hybrid knight should only let you take ONE hit, especially considering Hybrid knights get to do 300 damage at mid-range, compared to Melee Heavy only dealing 254 max at melee range.

 

[Liberty Mann]

Melee heavy sounds pretty fun without being op or annoying, I like the idea of warriors spirit without a dmg vulnerability since heavy is way slower than demoknight.

also, Hybrid knight needs to be nerfed. The eyelander lets you have 210 hp, letting you survive 2 boss hits when a shield is equipped. So If heavy isn't allowed to survive a hit, than Hybrid knight should only let you take ONE hit, especially considering Hybrid knights get to do 300 damage at mid-range, compared to Melee Heavy only dealing 254 max at melee range.

Hybrid knight has a massive ammo problem though, try it and watch your ammo get torched. He also actually has to hit hale 4 times to get enough health, even with a shield this isn’t easy on a hale that doesn’t w+m1.

 

[10000 Cold Knights]

Melee heavy is already a thing, just go steak sandvich+holiday punch. Enables free backstabbing for spies and shuts down vagineer rages.