Well, the War is over and looks like the soldier came out with a very slim victory over the demoman . Obviously Steam played with us saying that the victor will get a special weapon but gives both Demoman and Soldier 3 new weapons...The only difference is that the Soldier got the boots that allow them to rocket jump without killing themselves so easily.

In summary, the Demoman got:
1. The eyelander which provides the demoman with a more powerful melee weapon (with longer range than the bottle) but deals weak damage unless used with the targe.
2. The Charge n' Targe would gives the demoman fire and blast resistance and allows them to deal crits from charging from a distance.
3. The Scottish Resistance which allows demoman to stick 12 stickies instead of 8 now and allows him to explode certain groups instead of all of them at the same timeand blowing up other stickies for the price of not being able to pipe bomb jump as far or high.

The soldier received (aside from the boots):
1. The Direct Hit which fires an 80% faster rocket that deals 25% more damage for the loss of the ordinary blast radius reduced to a smaller one. This makes it easy for Soldiers to harass the snipers even more so and allows for those who are skilled at rocket sniping.
2. The Equalizer which is a pickaxe allows the soldier to go into Berserker mode when he's at low health dealing instead death with one smack.
3. The Buff Banner is used to give mini-crits to those within a certain range after you fill a meter after you do a certain amount of damage.

Ok, now here we go with opinions:
I think that the Demoman has now become over powered in close quarters fighting now instead of setting traps. I've seen at the start of a game on 2Fort where 4 demomen charged out and annihalated the rest of the entire team within 10 seconds (yes that includes, the scouts, pyros, soldiers, heavies and even the medics that were trying to run away). That round lasted 5 minutes as the demomen spawned camped with me uber charging them occasionally.

The new sticky gun I have not seen much of but it doesn't seem to be much different aside from the ability of being able to set 2 traps and setting one off and having the other one ready.

As for the soldier, even though he won the war, I think the Demoman comes out of this with the better deal. The soldier has an extremely good rocket launcher now for those that know how to use it but the equalizer is less useful in comparision to the Eyelander with the Charge and Targe as I've seen many soldiers injury themselves at the beginning of the game and attempt to melee but get taken out in one shot from a sniper or exploded by a soldier or demoman. The Buff banner only helps deal mini-crits and you need to do a certain amount of damage before before being able to use it, plus it doesn't last very long (14 seconds).

Also, all the other classes have become underpowered now except for the engineer and maybe the spy. I see scouts try and charge out and get rocket sniped or charged down by a demoman within seconds. The pyro can hold off Eyelander Demomans easily. However, the pyros are completely getting smoked by the Direct Hit rockets from the soldiers espicially when the pyros didn't even stand a chance in the beginning of standing up to dodge and maybe airblast 4 of the rockets that the soldier spams at him within 4 seconds. As for heavy, he gets taken down even faster by rockets from soldiers now since he's such an easy target that doesn't move much when he's shooting and this evens the playing field for the soldier against the heavy when they are in medium to close range (knowing that the soldier would take out a heavy from long range). The medic has utterly become useless to the soldier as the soldier wants to injure himself in combat to be able to use the equalizer. Also, the rockets are now harder to dodge and deal even more damage from the soldier, making it hard for a heavy medic pair hold off against 2 soldiers now. and I myself have been charged down too many times by the demoman that just took out my buddy that I was healing and having my head chopped off in one swing. The engineer has become weaker since their sentries are stationary probaly 2 or 3 rockets from the direct hit will eliminate it but there isn't much change against the demoman except that you know he can't bomb you out with stickies if he's using the charge and Targe unless he's got an uber. The spy will probaly have a harder time now as well pulling off the backstabs on the soldier espicially if the soldier has been damaged or the demo man if he's got the charge and targe, the only safe bet is to stay low and wait for the right opportunity.

My final thoughts would be that hopefully Steam is coming out with an Engineer update (I pray to god a debuff for the new weapons as well) because now all the classes except the Engineer have a second set of weapons that they can use. I want to hear what you guys think about this post-war update and the new game-play going on.

i'm guessing a nerf of the Eyelander, you get the max amount of heads and you're pretty much unstoppable unless you're dum

The close combat Demomen can get pretty ridiculous.

The Equalizer is crazy too. Especially in 1v1 melee fights. Have yet to see the Equalizer lose.

The Demoman and Soldier got some nice stuff. But, I think that this new gameplay does not underpower the other classes as much as you say. I would have to say it seems that way because it is different gameplay we are not used to...

however I am fine with the eyelander being super because I have it

Now Scout can only stun at long range..And short range doesn't do any damage
How am I gonna finish the Strike Zone achievement.

Man, I don't even carry The Sandman anymore.

Well I think that the drama about this has calmed down.
I don't think either class got a better update. They both have their strengths and weaknesses.

The Demoman is really good for melee fighting now, however when he carries the targe keep in mind he can not equip his stickies. Stickies are a really important aspect of the Demoman.


Now the Soldier has the DH which as Lee said does wonders on Heavys and SGs. There is much less splash damage making it not effective in certain places.
The Equalizer is a fun weapon. When a Soldier has low health he gets over powered, but health gets low and he can die quickly by anything that hits him. And I don't think there is a reason to carry the Shovel now except for doing that one Soldier achievement.

Also I'm glad that the Gunboats went to Soldier
I mean can you imagine Gunboats for Demoman? That would be crazy.

well the gunboats really aren't much help imo unless you rocket jump EVERYWHERE, but there's too much damage you could get from accidentally falling, or just taking a shortcut and misjudging the height

and really i think the gunboats would be fine with the demo, they would only work with stickies and at least half the demos now use the shield soo



also on the subject of the sword: the bottle does more damage, so unless you have 3 heads under your belt or you get a crit in, the other demo will win

Agreed.
Also, the Gunboats are for offensive primarily I think. Its fun to play around with it And on a payload map I jumped a corner and kept pushing the kart lil by lil The defensive part about it is that you can get away from a sticky situation. Also, if you need to grab health but you have some health to spare you should rocket jump if it means getting to the health.

But yeah, it depends how you want to play. Lets not forget the the shotgun, it can be beast.

Thing about the Demoman with Gunboats is that even tho many players already drop the stickies for the shield, would they do that for Gunboats? Is it worth using a whole slot when Demoman are not known to be sticky jumping all the time? I don't see Demoman sticky jump often. Its much more convenient for Soldier to be jumping. But I dunno, it would be interesting to think how that would have turned out.

The bit about the bottle is also very interesting to take note of.

EDIT:
If Demoman had Gunboats in the same slot as the targe then wouldn't that mean that there would be no stickies to jump from in the first place? lol. Unless of course, the primary grenade launcher was used for gunboats. Hurm.