BWR - Changelog 01/06/25

Melee Weapons
- Mini-crit on intermediate hits removed from melee combo
Feedback on crits seemed to point towards a replacement for random crits still be seen as necessary. However, while the current combo was effective, it wasn't seen as not enjoyable to fight against with the sudden damage increase on the second hit. Removing the intermediate mini-crits should make the expected damage from melees more predictable, while still giving them that lethal potential to end a fight in 3 hits.

Pain Train
+ Speed boost additionally applies to killing flag carriers
Correcting an oversight where defending this objective ought to have given the use a boost.

Flying Guillotine
  Fixed to no longer recharge on long-distance hits
Correcting an error where the weapon still instantly recharged at distance just on hit.

Liberty Launcher
+ Added: This weapon will reload automatically when not active (1/second)
+ Removed explosive radius penalty
- Removed firing speed bonus
The former changes, while somewhat improved the weapons effectiveness at dealing damage, didn't quite give the weapon a distinct enough use, and made the weapon feel more disjointed and lacking a cohesive design. To match with the idea of this weapon better enabling usage of secondary or melee weapons, a passive reload stat was added to the weapon instead. This should make using the weapon with a sidearm less cumbersome, particularly with it's extended clip, as you aren't as troubled in deciding to either reload or switch weapons. This on top of the boost to rocket jump resistance should make it appealing to use without a secondary focused on boosting rocket jumps.

Neon Annihilator
+ Reduced self-knockback from explosion by 50%
The explosion felt too punishing for the Pyro, leaving you too vulnerable and made escape after the hit unlikely. The knockback should still pop the pyro up a fair bit but without leaving them too vulnerable.

Loch-n-Load
+ Decreased reload speed penalty to 25% slower (was 35% slower)
- Removed reloading whole clip at once
The issue of spamming shots back to back after reload gave the weapon more uptime than it ought to have had for it's speed and range. Reloading at once was removed, and it's individual reloading was kept somewhat slow to make the weapon more decidedly worse in it's uptime.

The Amputator
  Fixed healing-on-hit being disproportionately higher (was x3)
Game updates had broken the weapon's ability to track crit heals on patients, which resulted in boosting the healing to levels that made Medic's wielding this too hard to kill. This has been corrected to make it less oppressive.

Solemn Vow
+ Removed No Random Crits
- Increased knockback to self by +50%
- Decreased knockback against enemies by -33%
  Overall makes the knockback dealt and received more equal
Knockback on the weapon was equalized between user and target to make the interaction a little fairer for the enemy, such that they aren't flung as far to put them in poor positions, while also pushing the medic away more to better enable their ability to escape with it. The no crit combo stat was removed for being not too necessary how you're forced apart from the target.

The Bushwacka
+ Reduced deploy speed penalty to 20% slower (was 35% slower)
The former deploy speed penalty seemed like too much of an overcorrection, and was eased to make the weapon less clunky to implement.