Wrap Assassin updates

The updates hardly did anything, but I’m still immensely satisfied with the changes Valve made to the Wrap Assassin.

Since my last article on this weapon, there have been two buffs. The first turned the ornament into a pseudo-explosive that deals area-of-effect but only bleed on a direct hit, which was driving me nuts because I didn’t actually know that when I recently picked the weapon back up, so I couldn’t figure out why I frequently got a hitsound but no resulting bleed hitsounds.

But now that I understand it, I’m 100% okay with the entire concept. After all, previously nothing happened on a miss, so additional opportunities to deal damage are appreciated. Plus explosives are powerful things, and even a weak one can only help give the scout more options.

The only real downside is that you can no longer pickup ornaments off the ground since they exploded, but the other buff halved the amount of time it takes for the ornament to recharge, which mostly counteracts the downside. I almost always have an ornament when I need one, unless I miss the first in a 1v1, and in that case I deserve to be caught unprepared.

Sure, it’s still a total upgrade to the bat, considering the scattergun is the best melee weapon in Scout’s arsenal, but I genuinely think Valve did the weapon justice with these buffs. Just like how the Crusader’s Crossbow badly needed passive reload despite being the best weapon in the slot, the Wrap Assassin was held back by an overly frustrating mechanic, namely how bloody long it took to recharge despite being so much less powerful than a Sandman. This update fixed that and added interesting utility to boot, so it gets a big thumbs up from me.