A legendary meme. A very poor weapon. The Righteous Bison rides again.

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Last night I couldn’t not do the idea. TF2 Weapons as stands.

This poor weapon… what tough times it’s been through. If you’re reading this you likely already know the big idea behind why this poor little robot gun is so terrible. You’d be better off throwing the gun instead of shooting it. It would probably do more damage and would travel faster with a good throw.

The Righteous Bison wasn’t ever good, not even before the Meet Your Match buff that drove this little guy into the ground. Before 2016’s controversial summer update, the Bison could penetrate multiple enemies for some underwhelming damage, but they could hit enemies twice if the enemy tried backing up. The Bison’s projectile speed was rather slow, but this played to the weapon’s advantage. The slower the projectile, the more likely anyone who was caught in it would get hit twice from backing up.

However, Valve ruined that admittedly creative and original idea when Meet Your Match when they removed the ability to hit more than once, gave it a slower projectile speed, and had the weapon lose 25% of it’s damage every time it penetrated a target. Valve claimed that the multiple hits trait was a bug (It wasn’t, it was in fact very intentional and integral to the weapon’s uniqueness), and compensated by giving this weapon more damage per shot and more consistent damage, but that isn’t enough.

This makes the weapon a strange, slow, and easily avoidable shotgun, which is even worse when you consider that the shotgun isn’t all too popular either. The backpacks and The Gunboats that the soldier can wear are much more useful in regular play, The Reserve Shooter is a gimmicky weapon that has a good function but isn’t too grand, and The Mantreads, while it is a waste of a secondary slot in a competitive scene, is a fun niche weapon for Soldiers who want to stomp some pub players. The Bison? Never designed to be a niche. None of the Grordbort weapons were meant to serve a niche purpose, they are supposed to be some fun alternatives meant for all purpose use like the stock weapons. The Bison is supposed to match up with the Stock Shotgun, which makes it hard to balance without the two weapons having a different purpose.

I think the fact that Valve has done nothing since Meet Your Match released is ridiculous, and not even mentioning the weapon in the upcoming notes back in June? Stupid. Why? Because this weapon doesn’t need 15 people sitting at an office desk pitching ideas for weeks on end. There are a lot of easy solutions to this problem.

Righteous Bison Iteration 1 • (+) Weapon now moves at 1000hu, as opposed to 840hu. This makes it the same speed as a syringe from the medic’s Syringe Gun, and makes it only a tad bit slower than the Rocket Launcher’s 1100hu. • (+) 0.5 seconds after the projectile hits a target, it slows down its speed to about the speed of a Scout running backwards, 360hu. This makes running away from the projectile a bad decision, while still making the weapon fast enough to reach the target to begin with. • (+) Instead of this weapon hitting once, or this weapon hitting once-per-second, it hits once every 1/20th of a second (once every 3 frames) for 3 damage. In practical terms, the weapon does 60 damage per second. • (+) Fall off and penetration penalty are removed, mostly because there isnt a great way to implement one of these without taking out a good chunk of the weapon’s usefulness. • (o) Instead of destroying the player’s ears with a barrage of 20 annoying hit sounds per second, the Bison will only make the hit sounds in the same way flamethrowers make their hit sounds. I’ll make a different post about this, because I want to change the Pyro’s flamethrower hit sound to something more informal about the threat and less annoying, just for people with sensitivity to sounds like that. Just know that I want it to be just like the flamethrower sound effect. • (-) Buildings only receive 1 damage per hit (20 damage per second), but they also don’t slow down when traveling through the building. You’re lucky to chip in 5 damage per shot. • (-) 20% slower firing rate.

I think I like this version the most, because it makes the weapon both very creative and very terrifying. Before, not getting out of the projectile’s way would result in more damage. Now, it could easily cost your life. Of course, the projectile wont be too deadly to players who know how to avoid getting annihilated (Which is to walk sideways), but a well placed shot against a player who isnt prepared can certainly do a lot of damage. Its about mind games here, the fear the little gun strikes against a player not prepared to fight against it is a great tool. Also, keep in mind this weapon never loses it’s effectivity over range or between players shot, but it will be a bit harder to utilize this because the shot will be slowed down when touching a player. Don’t be afraid to spam, even if the small firing rate penalty suggests being more careful with your shots. It’s there just to make sure you don’t annoy someone by shooting too many at once.

Righteous Bison Iteration 2 • (+) Weapon travels at 2400hu, the same speed as the Rescue Ranger and Crusaders Crossbow (And also is almost the same speed as a fully charged Stickybomb, 2409.2hu). • (+) Weapon does not have a penetrated player penalty. • (+) Has 6 shots instead of 4 in the clip. • (+) Shoots every 0.65 seconds instead of 0.8 seconds • (+) Reloads one shot every 0.5 seconds instead of every 0.92 seconds • (+) The projectile gets physically larger the longer it travels. The bigger it gets, the more translucent it becomes. Eventually it should actually dissipate but not at a range that would come into play super often in an actual game of TF2. Perhaps it will grow to be the size of 5 players standing side by side before it evaporates. • (-) Deals only 50 damage per hit at point blank range • (-) Damage fall off applies, capping off at 20 damage at long range. • (-) Does not hit enemies multiple times.

*to the tune of Gas - Initial D* Spam, spam, spam! I’m gonna step up the spam!

These changes make this gun function much, much closer to a pistol than a shotgun, but I think a better descriptor would be “A futuristic pistol raised by two shotguns who indirectly influenced it to be less pistol-like”. It has the same kind of concept of damage spread like the shotgun does, has 6 in the clip instead of 12, and has to reload each shot at once, which reflects a shotgun more, but you should still be using it more like a pistol here. This, unlike the other weapon concept, does wonders in crowds, but ultimately it isn’t a weapon you’d pull out outside of the same situations you’d use the shotgun for.

Thanks for reading!

Submitted by Dr. Cyan.

I kind of like Iteration 1 except for the falloff removal. Generally speaking snipers are the only classes who should be doing decent damage at long range, even with an easy-to-dodge projectile.

The deceleration ability is good choice, I think. It lets the Bison get in a little bit of damage while still not being easy to dodge.

Iteration 2 is also fun, although a massive projectile the size of five players could definitely get unpleasant. I definitely like the idea of it expanding, getting progressively harder to dodge and progressively able to hit more players.