Why the Short Circuit should be allowed in Medieval Mode

Remember when I covered Medieval Mode? It’s a great mode. Really fun for eight out of 9 TF2 classes.

I’m reasonably certain you can guess which class gets shafted (and not just by arrows).

Yes, poor Engineer has had everything he’s ever built stolen from him, and left to fend for himself with a plethora of melee weapons designed to augment nonexistent sentry guns. He basically shouldn’t exist as a choice, and for the most part if you play Medieval Mode, you’ll find that his representation on cp_degrootkeep is sorely lacking. (If there are engies, that’s usually a sign your server is busting out the bots).

Well, I’ve put a lot of thought into it, and decided that there is a simple fix that would go a long way towards making him fill an actual role that would improve Medieval Mode. Namely give him his Short Circuit back.

What will this do? Three things:

1) Most obviously, give Engineer something unique about him. Obviously, nobody plays Medieval Engineer except as a joke. None of his melee weapons are moderately designed for the mode and he can barely even hurt people. This would give him a unique role: projectile negation. (Also it’d give him a use for that 200 metal he has in Medieval but cannot use.)

2) It would become the (only) counter to projectiles. Projectiles play a big role in Medieval. Mad milk can carry or spoil a push. Sandmen/cleavers are 2HKOing people. Arrows are everywhere. Right now, there’s nothing you can do about that. Now there would be.

3) It would negate the demoknight’s “Get out of Crit Melee Death free” card. By which I mean that a standard melee critical hit deals 195 damage. Thanks to the booties, 200 hp demoknights can annoyingly survive one, while most others can’t. The Short Circuit deals 5 damage, enough to bring the demoknights down to everyone else’s level in a fight.

I know Valve doesn’t really balance Medieval Mode, but it really is a fun mode at the moment. It just has a few negative quirks to it, mainly how overpowered sniper and Demoknight are, and how useless Engineer is. This would aid both issues in one fell swoop.