I may well be missing things, and am happy to be corrected if that's the case. Sure, it's an annoying weapon to play against. But then, it's annoying for me to die whenever I touch the cart as there's no defence to the sticky trap / soldier spam / pipe spam coming my way.

[...] Increasing the use of classes such as Engy and Spy will not change the mechanics of the Medic or the value of a Medic pick. The way you have to think about medic is that his short term value to the team is variable depending on how much uber he has. A medic with no uber has less value than a medic with full uber, right? Increasing the relevance of the more irrelevant classes does not mess with the uber mechanic we love.

[...] Not really imo :/ The reason a med-pick is exciting, is because the medic is a more valuable class. And that's okay, in my opinion. Why would the soldier jump in for picks if each class is equally good? Why even bother risking a stab when you might aswell just pump out damage like all the other equally good classes? Medic is the most important class while spy is one of the least, and yet you find 100x as many scrubs wanting to play spy. It all comes down to what I've been saying all along, the different abilities and values each class has is what makes the game exciting and allows for creativity.

[...] And a personal request: please stop saying SC is overpowered. Explain what you mean. WHY is it overpowered? Is it the firing speed, is it the removing projectiles, is it the ammo cost?

[...] Yet, removing the SC is removing one of the abilities of the engineer, and allows for less creativity. You will run wrangler with level 3s, and probably pistol with minis. Lots of people are saying engineer is one of the weaker / less important classes, but at the same time denying the ability to change this because it would screw with the game meta. And a personal request: please stop saying SC is overpowered. Explain what you mean. WHY is it overpowered? Is it the firing speed, is it the removing projectiles, is it the ammo cost?

[...] Yet, removing the SC is removing one of the abilities of the engineer, and allows for less creativity. You will run wrangler with level 3s, and probably pistol with minis. Lots of people are saying engineer is one of the weaker / less important classes, but at the same time denying the ability to change this because it would screw with the game meta. And a personal request: please stop saying SC is overpowered. Explain what you mean. WHY is it overpowered? Is it the firing speed, is it the removing projectiles, is it the ammo cost? And since you mention the engineers role, it's to build things with the sole purpose of helping his teammates, and is largely useless on his own. Mini sentries changed this slightly, but the point still remains. Wielding the short circuit against a demo/soldier won't mean instant win for engineer. It means some of their pipes/stickies/rockets won't land. It's a preventative measure, that can be combined with other things.

[...] It all comes down to what I've been saying all along, the different abilities and values each class has is what makes the game exciting and allows for creativity.

I agree with you and none of your points are mutually exclusive to a better class balance. In fact all of the things you've said are good would be improved with better class balance right?

[...] Ok, lot here, let me try untangle it: 1) "Because things are almost completely opposite of that right now." The opposite of what I said: "equally game effecting but different" would be "all classes the same but effecting the game in different ways" which it clearly isn't? 2) "It would take way too big of an overhaul to make every single class matter as much as demo/medic. And how would you even do it properly? " Well you'd start in small steps... maybe implementing a weapon that made one of the less useful classes more important and one of the dominant classes less ;) 3) "And you can't just start doing it, one by one, on the engineer first. That would make the engineer overpowered, would it not?" First up you seem to be making the assumption that if you want to increase the presence of the engy you need to make him more prevalent than any other class (ie. overpowered). I think that's a bad assumption, using the SC as an example: "does the addition of this weapon make the engy the most powerful class?" I'd argue not. Secondly Who said it needs to be done one by one? Weapons such as the diamondback and reserve shooter increase the value of other undervalued classes.

[...] Because things are almost completely opposite of that right now. It would take way too big of an overhaul to make every single class matter as much as demo/medic. And how would you even do it properly? And you can't just start doing it, one by one, on the engineer first. That would make the engineer overpowered, would it not?