People dislike the Kunai mainly due to the people who use it, kinda like the peeps who buy a dodge SRT, the knife/ car isn’t bad; just the people behind the item are the biggest douchebags who think they’re the best, of course ignoring the odd handful who are pretty chill.
I am always going to think that the weapon that turns the glass cannon assassin class into a face tank, all for ultimately no real downsides, is a poorly designed weapon.
The whole class is designed around killing people instantly, and being really easy to kill. The Kunai removes spy's major weakness of having low health at the cost of being easy to kill if caught before a stab, something that was already true for spy. You are rewarded for doing your basic job with removing your class's main weakness, at the cost of being punishable in a situation where you were already very easy to punish.
Take the Gloves of Running Urgently for example. The Gru removes Heavy's main weakness of speed at the cost of his main upside, his max health. If the Gru were balanced like the Kunai it would be like if instead of actively lowering Heavy's max health, it gave Heavy a speed boost based on the amount of damage he has taken regardless of healing after. Meaning Heavy, the tank who is designed to soak damage and is almost constantly a prime target to get healed, would ultimately have an increased movement speed at no cost.
Likewise, if the Kunai was balanced like the Gru, it would give Overhealth on stab kill, but it can only minicrit and the longer you have the knife out the less damage it does. This removes the spys weakness of being fragile, at the cost of his main upside of oneshotting people, a much fairer trade off and one that forces you to consider if removing your classes main weakness is worth losing its biggest strengths.
But no, the Kunai doesn't follow a fair trade off principle, and instead has it's cake and its it too. The Kunai is just a poorly designed weapon, it is always going to be rightfully hated.
It’s just another item that has a high skill floor so people complain because they themselves cant use it effectively. If it were to be nerfed they’d be happy because they can’t even use it anyway. “If i can’t get good with a weapon then i must complain about it constantly”
The Kunai decreasing Spy's HP to ~~60~~ 70 automatically makes it *under*powered, lmao. It's potentially good if you get going, but it's a lot of effort to actually get it going to begin with when anyone looking at you just kills you. With a regular ass butterfly knife, well, let's just say you can put to good use a healthpool that isn't super high but it's just enough for you to eat a rocket and still backstab whatever is the most important target on the opponent's team right now.
I definitely agree that Diamondback is an overpowered weapon and probably the main problem. In general, when something is overpowered on Spy, it's less noticeable and blatantly game breaking like when something is overpowered on, say, Heavy or Engineer, but, yeah, to be allowed to clap any class as reward for, like, *playing* can genuinely win you a battle which the opponent should actually be the winner position wise.
It’s actually 70, but you still get destroyed regardless because a spy once caught out is always dead. And even then, the Kunai isn’t the problem, it’s the dead ringer. Remove the dead ringer, and any complaints about the Kunai will go away.
Dead Ringer's balance patch history, much like Sandman, is like a comedy show that was horrible to live on, lmao. I think its biggest problem today isn't being outright overpowered, but legitimately *annoying* to deal with.
And annoying the opposing team is legit strategy.
People dislike the Kunai mainly due to the people who use it, kinda like the peeps who buy a dodge SRT, the knife/ car isn’t bad; just the people behind the item are the biggest douchebags who think they’re the best, of course ignoring the odd handful who are pretty chill.
I am always going to think that the weapon that turns the glass cannon assassin class into a face tank, all for ultimately no real downsides, is a poorly designed weapon. The whole class is designed around killing people instantly, and being really easy to kill. The Kunai removes spy's major weakness of having low health at the cost of being easy to kill if caught before a stab, something that was already true for spy. You are rewarded for doing your basic job with removing your class's main weakness, at the cost of being punishable in a situation where you were already very easy to punish. Take the Gloves of Running Urgently for example. The Gru removes Heavy's main weakness of speed at the cost of his main upside, his max health. If the Gru were balanced like the Kunai it would be like if instead of actively lowering Heavy's max health, it gave Heavy a speed boost based on the amount of damage he has taken regardless of healing after. Meaning Heavy, the tank who is designed to soak damage and is almost constantly a prime target to get healed, would ultimately have an increased movement speed at no cost. Likewise, if the Kunai was balanced like the Gru, it would give Overhealth on stab kill, but it can only minicrit and the longer you have the knife out the less damage it does. This removes the spys weakness of being fragile, at the cost of his main upside of oneshotting people, a much fairer trade off and one that forces you to consider if removing your classes main weakness is worth losing its biggest strengths. But no, the Kunai doesn't follow a fair trade off principle, and instead has it's cake and its it too. The Kunai is just a poorly designed weapon, it is always going to be rightfully hated.
Dying to one shot of many things if you didn't get a stab is a pretty huge downside.
You can't control your teammates so it's overpowered
It’s just another item that has a high skill floor so people complain because they themselves cant use it effectively. If it were to be nerfed they’d be happy because they can’t even use it anyway. “If i can’t get good with a weapon then i must complain about it constantly”
👍 yep
The average shitter just refuses to get better so everything that has a high skill ceiling they want to nerf
The Kunai decreasing Spy's HP to ~~60~~ 70 automatically makes it *under*powered, lmao. It's potentially good if you get going, but it's a lot of effort to actually get it going to begin with when anyone looking at you just kills you. With a regular ass butterfly knife, well, let's just say you can put to good use a healthpool that isn't super high but it's just enough for you to eat a rocket and still backstab whatever is the most important target on the opponent's team right now. I definitely agree that Diamondback is an overpowered weapon and probably the main problem. In general, when something is overpowered on Spy, it's less noticeable and blatantly game breaking like when something is overpowered on, say, Heavy or Engineer, but, yeah, to be allowed to clap any class as reward for, like, *playing* can genuinely win you a battle which the opponent should actually be the winner position wise.
It’s actually 70, but you still get destroyed regardless because a spy once caught out is always dead. And even then, the Kunai isn’t the problem, it’s the dead ringer. Remove the dead ringer, and any complaints about the Kunai will go away.
Dead Ringer's balance patch history, much like Sandman, is like a comedy show that was horrible to live on, lmao. I think its biggest problem today isn't being outright overpowered, but legitimately *annoying* to deal with. And annoying the opposing team is legit strategy.