We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

Wowee, okay, that was quite a TF2 update we just had. My thoughts (on the things that I thought were notable in the list):

• My only surprise at the addition of a mark of death to the Escape Plan is that they didn't go even further.
  
• I am surprised they didn't make any changes to the Equalizer. As it stands it's more or less a straight upgrade to the Shovel, since the number of situations in which a Soldier would have to pull out their melee weapon while being pocketed by a medic is extremely small. (And if a player finds themselves getting into those types of situations frequently, Soldier probably isn't the best class for them.)
  
• Now that the Cow Mangler 5000 has the same clip size as a regular Rocket Launcher and no longer suffers reload speed or damage penalties, it's looking to be an extremely viable weapon for a roaming Soldier. Given that a lone Soldier is unlikely to take out a fully rooted Engineer on their own anyway, the damage loss against sentries stings quite a bit less, and not needing ammo means the Soldier can stay away from "home" longer. The lack of crit boosting is trivial to a roaming Soldier, who should be off harassing the enemy and trying to kill the opposing Medic, rather than buddying up with friendly ones.
  
• I swear I can hear the hooting at Valve headquarters all the way over here in Missouri over how they managed to make the Liberty Launcher even worse. Not only does it still have subpar damage output in exchange for an increase in projectile speed which only shackles the player to the weapon (as learning to predict the movement of Liberty Launcher rockets means it will be harder for the player to adjust to other rocket launchers), but now you have to land an additional rocket or the damage output gets even worse (75% of the regular Rocket Launcher damage if you land all four shots, and about 56% if you only land three).
  
• Chargin' Targe looks a bit more interesting now, even moreso when you consider the fact that it prevents the "puff 'n sting" strategy. Add to that the +50% fire resistance buff it already had, and Demoknights suddenly get a good deal more lethal to Pyros. Regular Demomen will still have some trouble, though; even though the afterburn removal is nice, Demomen have no close range combat to fall back on other than "melee," and their other attacks can still be reflected by a good Pyro. Even without the capability to use puff 'n sting, the Pyro will usually end up killing them without having to rely on afterburn to do it for them. If the Demoman does survive the fight, however, they'll be quite relieved to know that they're not going to have to deal with up to 60 points of extra damage should they fail to reach a health kit, friendly Medic, dispenser, friendly Pyro with a compression blast, supply cabinet, friendly Heavy with a Sandvich or some variant thereof, some body of water, friendly Sniper with jarate, or a friendly Scout with Mad Milk.
  
• Firing every shot of a Rescue Ranger into a sentry gun will now repair it by 1200 points - up 400 from the previous amount, but still much less than an equivalent Wrench would do in the same timeframe (2205 points). Not really much to say on that, I just ran the numbers because I was curious.
  
• With the addition of overheal (up to 50% of the regular overheal amount, or 25% of the heal target's maximum health), the Quick-Fix has made the abrupt jump from subpar to surprisingly viable. The lack of preventive healing was a massive crutch, making a Quick-Fix Medic useful only during (and directly after) combat, and decreasing their effectiveness at keeping the team alive as a whole (fun fact: a player who has taken damage in the last 10 seconds will only receive 1/3 of the full healing rate of any medigun). With that mitigated, the +40% healing rate and +25% Ubercharge rate can truly shine. 300% healing rate means 100.8 damage healed per second in combat on both the Medic and their target, with the target's maximum health still benefitting from the +25% overheal potential. And with the knockback immunity, Pyros can no longer use their airblast to ruin the Ubercharge (although a puff 'n sting will still win in the end, provided they can survive long enough). Although the knockback immunity was the only change to the Quick-Fix's Ubercharge, it was worth reiterating that it's still a very powerful Ubercharge in its own right - a non-Wrangler'd level 3 sentry gun can deal 1124-1324 damage in 8 seconds (the duration of an Ubercharge used on a single target), but only has 216 health, so it would lose most of the fights. As a fun point to note, a Medic with the Quick-Fix can get the speed boost from a Demoman shield charge if they latch on mid-charge. Add to that the knockback invulnerability and 300% healing rate of the Ubercharge, and, well, there might be some pretty pissed off Engineers whose sentries got beaten to death with sticks. For Engineers behind the sentries, consider the Ullapool Caber, which will deal 149 points of explosive damage to the sentry, any foes standing around it, and the Demoman - killing any non-overhealed Engineer turtling behind their sentry, and sending overhealed ones flying away with 38 health or less left.
  
• Why do people even still use the Bazaar Bargain
  
• Dead Ringer is still a problem, because of the ability to tank hits (leading to the use and abuse of DR. Enforsicle loadouts), but at least now feigning death requires a little more cunning, since damage taken after it activates will now drain the remaining cloak (no hard numbers yet on the ratio of damage taken to cloak lost).
  
• L'Etranger buff of +40% cloak duration looks fantastic - well, for the spies, anyway. I doubt the enemy players will share the same opinion on that.