That's basically what I was trying to do by suggesting reduced rate of fire and spread

But the stats enable the emergent gameplay to exist and be rewarded. You couldn't have a lot of the amazing emergent tech in TF2 without proper stats to make it possible. There is a ton of subtlety to various mechanics like charging stickies that would take a good bit of space to properly describe, more than most of my ideas in fact. Some of the best loved primaries in the game are the more complicated ones, like stickies and the Sniper rifle. Just because Valve won't explain these subtleties in game doesn't mean they aren't there and contributing to your enjoyment of the better skill indexed classes in the game

Depends on how high your standard of complicated is but even the mess I posted would at least be a little more challenging than current heavy

He's set up to be so limited and easy in his current form, getting him to be more complicated than now isn't exactly a high bar

Uhh
Isn't rocket jumping complicated? How about air pogos with stickies? Looks pretty complicated to me. Why is complicated bad? I thought making heavy more complicated would be a veritable necessity to make him more interesting and better skill indexed

Besides, if stuff like the Vaccinator and cp_snowplow aren't "too complicated" for TF2 I don't see how basic stuff like hiding behind your giant metal gun for protection (crouch rev armor), accuracy being higher at lower rates of fire like other weapons, recoil on a giant rapid fire gun, and using longer shells (more powerful but take up more space in a tube mag shotgun, hence more damage and -1 clip size) couldn't be explained as well as anything else in this game

Bruh, the only reason the post was so long is because it's explicitly changing a bunch of things from the current state of the game. Explaining the class from the ground up with these mechanics would still take less time than teaching someone spy or engineer, and the changes I listed would cause far more substitutions of values than addition of fields in that table. Besides, part of the reason that table is so small is because it doesn't inform you about the effects of the nerf I mentioned in the OP. Current heavy is already complicated in asinine poorly explained ways

Since people don't seem keen to comment at all on my minigun idea or the nerf and instead prefer conversations of fixing heavy, I'll post a crude, potentially awful changelist to "fix" him.

+The nerf discussed in the OP is gone
-50 max HP (250max->375overheal)
+Crouching while grounded and revved (thus cannot move) grants 22.5% damage resistance (effective health 306max->459overhealed) (This resistance does not apply to critical damage, a fully charged headshot would deal 300 crit dmg+ 122 resisted base damage = 422 dmg which is much higher than 375 max overheal)
+Spinup time from mouse1->boolets is now .5 seconds and Heavy can still jump during this time
-From .5 seconds to .7 seconds of holding mouse1 (the first 3 shots the Minigun will fire after revving), each unit of ammo consumed only fires 1 bullet (-75% damage output), rev up movespeed penalty reduced by 75%, shot spread reduced by (some amount that doesn't invalidate Sniper or Demo or Soldiers jumping)
-From there until 1.00 seconds (the next three shots), each unit of ammo consumed only fires 2 bullets (-50% damage output), rev up movespeed penalty reduced by 50%, shot spread reduced by (less than above but still a good amount)
-Until 1.4 seconds (next 3 shots again), each unit of ammo consumed only fires 3 bullets (-25% damage output), rev up movespeed penalty reduced by 50%, shot spread reduced by (some amount, whatever is balanced for the damage and mobility)
-1.5 seconds and on, the Minigun fires four shots per unit of ammo consumed, functioning identically to the current incarnation in all aspects (you can now no longer jump, have current spread, and you are fully slowed)
-Letting go of mouse1 causes rev speed to slowly decrease, slowly counting backwards in how many shots you will fire per unit ammo when you press mouse1 again, allowing one to stay in any given range by modulating mouse1 (rate requires testing, whatever makes the weapon feel good to use)
-All changes in current effective rate of fire are now visible in how fast the barrels of your Minigun spin graphically as well as a segmented hud gauge
+While at max rate of fire, the Minigun now has slight pushback recoil that allows Heavy to slightly alter his midair trajectory, jump just before max ROF to achieve a roughly scorch shot height vertical hop, and move diagonally backwards marginally faster than forwards. Not useful for stealthy flanks because you have to shoot for almost a second before using the hop

+Heavy's shotgun now gets extra base damage vs soldier and pyro shotty (not rampup like scatter vs shotty) for 110 damage meatshots, but 5 round mags.

+Heavy can heal by picking up his own thrown lunches again, but at a 33% lower healing benefit vs his teammates. Heavy is quite large, a single sandvich doesn't go as far for him as his smaller teammates

That's all I can think of. Idk, it's hard to know if any of this stuff is a good idea without server mods to test

So basically you're saying I haven't proposed enough changes to fix heavy? That's fine, because this post isn't long enough, or really intended, to fully "fix" heavy. I just want opinions on how to make using the Minigun to shoot enemy gamers more fair and interesting

edit: phrasing

Why not just make them fun to play and fun to play against?

Valve doesn't seem to think so. Back in the Love and War update, Heavy got a Minigun nerf. Though it was softened a short while later, it amounts today to heavy having reduced accuracy just as he spins up (which gradually returns to normal over 1 sec of being revved, firing or not), and reduced damage just as he begins firing (which gradually returns to normal over 1 sec of holding mouse1).

These nerfs seemed particularly puzzling at the time, given that A) it seemed 80+% of people who thought heavy needed nerfs were not terribly skilled, and B) you could still play entirely braindead standing atop the cart/dispenser holding M1 with a huo long heater and the nerf wouldn't matter to you. The nerf seemed inspired by low level players, but it was implemented in a way that minimally affects low level heavy play. It did, however, leave heavy noticeably worse at some of the few things he did well in higher level play (high volume of hitscan stream damage to reliably deny flankers and jumpers, now made weaker and less reliable when mobile).

What do you guys think of the Minigun nerf? Was it beneficial to the game or not? I personally don't necessarily think so. Adding more unavoidable randomness and spread is a poor balancing choice. IMO, if heavy needs less immediate damage, he should start out with a slower rate of fire to accomplish the lower damage for the first second, while also having a tighter spread proportional to the slower ROF. This would discourage spraying, reward tracking, and let heavy tap M1 to have lower DPS with longer reach. Could be a really interesting way to spice up playing heavy and make him stronger in open areas, maybe even give him a little more counterplay vs Sniper? While still reducing his immediate damage if that sole factor was problematic.

After watching this I can't tell if I like old pyro or new better. Old airblast was complete cheese, airstrafe stuns you every time and resets all momentum. Then again, old fire was more skill indexed (somehow) than current fire. Pick your poison I guess

See, this is the shit that just makes me mad. WHO in their RIGHT MIND at Valve would EVER forego per hitbox damage calculation? Especially to replace it with a trash tier system that only checks if you're burning the player 12 times per second? Who the hell looks at a weapon with a ~23 hitbox per second fire rate and thinks "we should make hitting half your shots deal 180DPS and then just cap the damage there lol that'll incentivize aiming"

EVERYONE, from the pubber "pyro is OP" terribads up to comp players, shared one complaint about Pyro: he didn't need or reward aim. A secondary complaint was the LUDICROUSLY buggy particle hitreg. What did Valve do? Made pyro way more consistent in a way that incentivizes aim even less. God why

You jump everywhere with no airstrafing? Neat

I use ESDF, more comfortable this way because it gives my pinky an easy reach to shift, which I crouch with instead of ctrl

Your points absolutely still stand, great video. I share your frustrations with intentionality in aiming. Pre-JI, Pyro's biggest issue IMO was dealing 40+ DPS on point blank enemies by spinning wildly in circles. Post-JI, he does that even better. Valve pls

Eww, really? I've only pubbed since the update (haven't been playing a lot of TF2 lately) so I didn't expect close range with a good Scout/soldier be THAT free. I just thought my pub opponents had terribad movement, not like I can really tell how they're moving anyways through all the stupid vision obscuring particles I spew

These people work for the company that made CS1.6, how did they botch this update so terribly

New pyro is worse?? Could you elaborate? I'm curious about comp player opinions on new pyro

I'm curious to hear why you think so

Wholeheartedly agree about MM. Valve comp's current state is shameful. Casual still has random crits. There is still no functioning rank system. They have provided us nothing of value in that regard.

Idk about pyro not being broken before. He was pretty buggy, 40-some% extra range during ping spikes is garbage. However, if they were going to update him to not be buggy but still be terribly designed, they could've at least taken a reasonable amount of time to do it