The Family Business – The one weapon that SHOULD be multi-class!
The Family Business is nothing new. In fact, it’s one of those really annoying +stat/-stat weapons that most people despise and say it should be reworked and complain that it’s boring and stuff. But for someone like me, it’s great and I wish more people could use it.
A quick reminder of the stats, the Family Business is your standard shotgun. It is currently equipped by the Heavy in the secondary slot. In exchange for an extra two shots in your clip, you get a nice 15% damage penalty. Doing the maths, it does a tiny weeny bit more damage than the Shotgun in an equal amount of time, but damage spread makes sure that no one ever notices. Oh yeah, it’s also part of the Black Market Business set, but it doesn’t have any effects like the Polycount ones, it’s purely cosmetic. Weirdly, the Family Business is crafted from a reclaimed metal, a Frontier Justice and a Homewrecker and you can use three Family Businesses and a reclaimed to make a Huo Long Heater.
So what’s so special about the Family Business? Most people say not much. Many think you might as well use stock. But my brother swears by the damn thing, and having seen him Fat Scout his way through all sorts of servers at our normal 120+ ping, I can see why. Those two extra shots make all the difference between life and death. The extra damage does hurt on individual shots, but when you can pump an enemy full of boolets using all 8 shots, well, everything’s dead. It also gives you that extra bit of leeway for when you screw up or, if you’re anything like me, you can’t hit the broad side of a barn.
The best thing about the Family Business though is its simplicity and its +stat/-stat ways. That’s why this wonderful shotgun SHOULD be usable on other classes. The extra shots and the less damage don’t affect the core aspects of a class in any way. The damage increase is incredibly small and balances out with the shotgun in normal gameplay. And because it uses a shotgun model, there’s very little tinkering needed to make it work with other classes.
Where would the upsides be then? Well, for Soldiers, it would nicely complement the Black Box, the Beggar’s Bazooka and the Liberty Launcher, which are all missing a rocket from their clip size. Most Soldiers know how to conserve ammo and stuff, but it’d be nice. Engineers don’t particularly need the extra ammo while the option would be nice, but perhaps Pyros would enjoy having more ammo to fire at airblasted targets or enemy Pyros. The Scout would be left out here, but perhaps a scattergun with a larger clip is possible? His unlocks generally have the same or less ammo.
In the end, while the Family Business doesn’t bring anything brand spanking new to the table, it’s a nice option that doesn’t mess you around.
