It's better to read the previous article to understand the reasons for the Heavy's issues as an experience, but to summarize, these are Heavy's main issues:

• Heavy needs to have low mobility to counter his strong stall potential, but this makes travelling to mid a chore and limits his access to mobility options.

• Heavy's slowness also severely limits his options in 1v1 scenarios outside of choosing when to play a numbers game with the enemy.

• Heavy's slowness also leaves his punish options practically nonexistant

• Heavy has by far the most unviable loadout options, to the point where he only has one or two actually viable choices for playstyle.

•Heavy has other tools like shotguns and melee to compensate for his extremely strong but extremely slow primary, but because it takes so long to switch, and the Heavy is still the slowest class in the game, these options are either entirely unviable, or contest the Minigun for damage tool (which of course the Minigun is going ro win out). So his weapon options are limited almost exclusively to his Minigun

Throughout most of Heavy's design, we see choices that time and again limit the meaningful choices one can make with Heavy, meaning that playing him in a "maining" capacity is liable to be...unfulfilling. But how can this be improved? CAN it even be improved? There are likely a number of ways one could approach this - and I'd love to hear what ideas you all might have - but this is one possible solution I propose. It's pretty extreme, but it works to improve all of the above issues and add more meaningful choice to the Heavy game while still maintaining the core of what makes the Heavy...the Heavy. The big slow but powerful tank that can shut down chokes flexibly like no other class can.

So let's start with the first major change.

Now bear with me here. The Heavy is already a strong class. Perhaps even too strong in competitive. He can shut down Soldiers trying to bomb Medics, ruining their offense. And from what I hear from competitive players, there is little way to deal with this. So I think this might be a good opportunity to cut down on Heavy's dominance in the stall game and redistribute that power into more options for his kit.

The nerf would have to be substantial. I'm not great with numbers, so try not to get too hung up on any amount I throw out there (feel free to suggest something more reasonable), but I'm thinking anywhere between 15% and 20%. That may sound like it's killing the Heavy's zoning game, but considering how much of an ABSOLUTE DPS MONSTER the Heavy is, with the Minigun TOWERING over all other stock weapons in terms of DPS with a staggering maximum of 540 compared to the second place of Demoman's Stickybomb Launcher sitting at 240, he would still be the best mid-range dps in the game. Just by less of a wide margin.

(Note: Fallout and missed bullets are also a factor that frequently cut down on that dps, but even with that, anyone can agree the Heavy's average TTK is still terrifying.)

So now enemy players can stand in the Heavy's line of fire 15% to 20% longer. What do we give him to replace that?

Now that the area Heavy controls is a little less oppressive, we can afford to give the Heavy a little more ability to move that area around. The Heavy is already the slowest class in the game, and having that movement considerably dropped even further leaves him feeling very Sentry Gun. By giving him a move speed a little closer to his unspun move speed, he can more readily round corners, reach cover, evade projectiles, and dodge sniper sightlines. Duels become a little more exciting now that mobility plays some more of a role and doesn't boil down to a number game. I'm thinking a much less crippling 67% move speed compared to his present 37% spun move speed - giving him a 10% speed reduction from his base 77%.

A less dominant stalling power also means we can afford to have the Heavy travel and reach mid faster. By wearing any melee while moving, he will receive a 10% boost to his move speed, setting him at a more reasonable 87% base. Now, not only will he be able to approach mid and escape bad situations a little more reliably, but his chase options like followups with shotguns and melee will be a little more viable. Not incredibly so, as his speed is still beaten out by practically every class, but enough that he could have a chance to capitalize on overextended enemies.

Now even with the sizeable damage nerf I've proposed, these two aforementioned buffs are still VERY powerful. So I propose this one nerf to check their advance: slow down the draw speed of all Miniguns by about 10%. This means that while fists are the optimal choice for traversing the map, getting caught out without your primary deployed will leave you in a very disadvantageous position. So that means the Heavy has to think more carefully about what tool he chooses to round that next corner with, and that means +1 more meaningful choice for the Heavy.

Last but not least, the buff that brings all of these former propositions together"

While the Heavy is spun up, he can press SPACE to instantly unspin and switch to another weapon, at the cost of 50 ammo (perhaps down to 40 after the rebalance becomes more familiar to the playerbase. If I were so bold, perhaps even down to 25 at some point). This gives the Heavy access to his full loadout on the fly, enabling the combo power and flexibility that other classes have.

Heavy could cancel out of a Minigun to possibly escape a bad exchange, cancel into a Sandwich to give to his Medic at a clutch moment, cancel into a shotgun or melee to catch the enemy off-guard or chase them down with some additional mobility, or even cancel back into Minigun for a quick reposition.

With the tools that the Heavy has been given all coming together, the amount of meaningful choices the Heavy has for him to make increases substantially, creating a more fun and engaging Heavy experience. Weapons that were formerly unviable now have niche application. They'd still be memey, but not completely useless. That's what I'm aiming for anyway. I hope that these changes can create the sort of environment where the Heavy can thrive as a fun and varied class, but it's hard to say without seeing it in action. How might you approach the Heavy Update? Let me know in the comments below. I might try to approach some rebalance for the Heavy's more unviable loadout options with this post in mind, but we'll see about that.