New buffed Natascha - is she worth it?

So, I spent an evening playing with the new Natascha - now with 9% more damage and more slowdown!

Is she worth it yet? In my opinion, no. The killing power just isn't there.

Pre-buff, I still used Natascha when playing offence sometimes - and I still will, because she's only gained in power.

But, in my opinion: 99% of the time, she's not a credible alternative to Sascha.

Your opinions?

I think Natasha is great for slowing down an uber Pyro e.g., but I still prefer Sasha... You already said it, Natasha is just lacking firepower.

Lycosa - are you sure that firing Natascha at an ubered character slows them down? I haven't seen this.

I'm almost sure that this doesn't work, unless it's a glitch. The whole point of an uber is to be invincible. If effects are still on you, what's the point?

I took a heavy with natasha as an engineer, within flame thrower range about and only the shotgun.  The amount of health i made it out with was low, enough that normal sasha would have killed me.  The heavy is about killing and thats the problem with natasha.

Sure on paper natasha looks great.  Makes him more useful longer range and should hit more because of slow at medium/close.  Since a heavy isn't going to walk around with his gun down, theres not point to being good long range, the 3-4 seconds it takes to actually hit the guy and either party is usually dead.  Let alone the time you lost because you stopped to shoot.  If something is close range, you want it dead asap.  You're a big fat slow target, so sasha is the choice.  Natasha only has a chance at medium range.  That is where it shines the most, but the problem is that the target gets another shot or two to kill you.  While you have more hp, it is not enough to cover for the lack of damage.  Instead of a soldier getting 2 rockets off, he can get 3-4.  Or as i did with engineer, unload two more shotgun shots into him.  The heavy is fat so theres a good chance of all bullets hitting him.  That 25% less damage is 2 seconds longer i get to live, thats two more shots and about 160 more damage.  No class can take that type of punishment.

It also has the wrong role attached to it.  You don't want to be a target with natasha, if someone runs at you they don't care if they're slow (aside from pyro, scout usually closes the distance by the time you're ready to shoot him)  But you will become a target, with less killing power.  All that means is you have to count on your HP more, which is a horrible trade off.  Theres alot more to this than most people think, and right now i'm all over the place with it.  It comes down to a killing class getting less power to slow someone who has a ranged weapon.  Getting your medic killed and then killing the enemy is damn good trade for the other team.

In the end it comes down to not testing it competitively, give the gun to anyone in the competitive mind set and have them use it in the game, it just doesn't work in practice, but it is one hell of a paper idea.

So how would we improve Natascha? Should it be implemented similar to pre-nerf BB where any heavy who equips Natascha has an extra 50-100 HP or maybe give some bonus to the heavy, such as allowing the heavy to move faster with natascha equipped/revved?

The main point of Natascha is to help out with your team. If there's a scoutfight going on, try and hit the other scout: he'll be slower and easier to hit.

Best used with your team, at that...

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I would like Natascha to have no spin up/down time, and possibly to allow faster movement while revved. Then, I think it would be a genuine trade-off.

BAHAAHAHAHA A CHAINGUN WITH NO STARTUP/DOWN TIME

I don't think you realize how unbalanced that would make the class. Even if it is a much less powerful weapon.

Also Natascha is still garbage and not practical. If you want to excel with the class learn to aim without the aid of any slowdown.

There was a time, on Chaos, I got behind a Pyro at point blank, revved before saw me, and he still killed me. He was only barely alive, but I failed to kill a pyro with point blank suprise attack with a minigun because of Natascha. After that, I never used it again.

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It's as simple as this, which is a shame, because I like Natascha.