Updated:

• Giant Shotgun Heavy changes:
  
  
  • Increased melee attack rate bonus to +50% faster (from +40% faster).

Updated:

• Giant Flare Pyro changes:
  
  
  • Removed the +67% afterburn damage bonus.
    
  • Removed the +30% damage bonus on the Scorch Shot.
    
  • Reduced reload speed to +55% faster (from +60% faster).
    
  • Increased Scorch Shot damage vs buildings by +25%.
    
    
  • Scorch Shot now causes enemies to bleed for 5 seconds on hit.
    
    
    • The weapon applies both afterburn and bleed at the same time.
      
    • Bleed damage mini-crits every tick against burning players.
      
    • Afterburn damage resets the 5 second bleed timer.

This iteration of the Flare Pyro brings it back to what made it unique in the first place, by allowing it to apply deadly damage over time effects. The new bleed effect makes it not totally useless against enemy Pyros (while still remaining weaker against them), and the reduced reload speed means the Flare Pyro has to make shots count instead of just holding the left mouse button.

Originally posted by CaioXG002:

Aww, the terminal afterburns are now gone? :(

The Flare Pyro has been tricky to balance while also keeping it enjoyable for both teams. The problem with a giant that specializes in absurdly powerful afterburn is that it destroys everyone who can't extinguish themselves, while also being rather weak against enemy Pyros.

So it has an extreme polarization issue. Either it's destroying everyone or it's getting destroyed by enemy Pyros.

While I think the afterburn focus made it more interesting, very few strategies worked against it. You basically just stacked Pyro and Medic or die. Originally I had intended to resolve this by replacing it with the Giant Detonator Pyro, but that didn't work out so well because an alarming number of players didn't understand how the Detonator works.

That being said, I think it's the right move to try and make it at least a bit more focused on actually hitting players to kill them instead of just glancing in their general direction.

So, here's another revision, as the one I introduced today was too powerful:

• Giant Flare Pyro changes:
  
  
  • Restored the afterburn damage bonus, though it's only +67% instead of +167%.
    
  • Scorch Shot now has a +30% direct damage bonus.
    
  • Removed the "crits when it would normally mini-crit" ability.
    
  • Reduced reload speed to +60% faster (from +65% faster).

I'll be interested to see how this plays out. Keep in mind that most changes here are simply experiments, so it's certainly possible to revert changes that don't end up being improvements. Your feedback is appreciated.

Updated:

• Giant Flare Pyro changes:
  
  
  • Removed the +167% afterburn damage bonus.
    
  • Removed the +50% afterburn duration bonus.
    
  • Removed the +65% faster Scorch Shot deploy speed.
    
  • Scorch Shot now crits when it would normally mini-crit.
    
  • Increased Scorch Shot reload speed bonus to +65% faster (from +60% faster).
    
  • Scorch Shot no longer has a damage penalty (deals stock Flare Gun damage).
    
  • Reduced Scorch Shot damage bonus vs buildings to +20% (from +25%). Overall building damage is increased due to the above change.

Updated:

• Super Spy changes:
  
  
  • Now regenerates up to 25 health per second.
    
  • Reduced max health to 1,100 (from 1,300).
    
  • Increased Diamondback firing speed penalty to -40% slower (from -30% slower).
    
  • Removed the +15% faster weapon switch speed bonus.

These changes were made to make the Super Spy a little less potent at direct combat, and also more vulnerable when caught. To prevent these changes from forcing Super Spies into playing too passively, health regen has been added. The regen works identically to passive regen items in the game, such as the Concheror, in that taking damage reduces the amount of regen for a period of time. So while this does not help him much in combat, it does mean he can get back into the game more quickly if he has to retreat.

As always, these changes are purely experiments in order to find what works best.

Updated:

• Super Spy changes:
  
  
  • Now equipped with the Disguise Kit again.
    
  • Increased move speed while cloaked to 480 HU/s (from 448 HU/s).
    
  • Melee weapon changed from Your Eternal Reward to Conniver's Kunai.
    
    • Since the Super Spy's melee was basically a merged version of the Kunai and YER, this change is purely visual, and the attributes remain the same as before.

One of the reasons I removed the Super Spy's Disguise Kit in the first place was because many players assumed they didn't have it due to the Your Eternal Reward.

I had decided to try and balance the Super Spy around this by removing the Disguise Kit and adding simpler compensation buffs in other areas, to improve the odds that players new to the Super Spy would make full use of him and understand him as much as experienced players do.

However, this caused problems. Because Super Spies were not able to disguise until they scored a backstab, they had difficulty getting anything accomplished in areas with heavily guarded Engineer nests. On top of this, the faster attack rate on the Super Spy's melee weapon often meant players would accidentally lose the disguise they had just gained by swinging again after a backstab.

These issues are why I have decided to re-add the Disguise Kit to the Super Spy. In doing so, I have changed the visual of his melee weapon to that of the Conniver's Kunai instead of the Your Eternal Reward, which will hopefully cause more players to realize that they can disguise at will.

Updated:

• Giant Flare Pyro changes:
  
  
  • Scorch Shot now deploys 65% faster.
    
  • Increased Scorch Shot damage bonus vs buildings to +25% (from +18%).
    
  • Increased Third Degree damage by +25%.
    
  • Increased Third Degree attack range by +30%.

Updated:

• Giant Rapid Fire Demoman changes:
  
  
  • Increased Grenade Launcher clip size to 6 (from 5).

Updated:

• Giant Minefield Demoman changes:
  
  
  • Reduced bomb arm time penalty to +1.5s slower (from +1.8s slower).
    
  • Reduced self damage taken to -65% (from -50%).

Updated:

• Giant Engineer changes:
  
  
  • Increased Teleporter build rate bonus to +120% (from +115%).
    
  • Sentry now builds at default Gunslinger rate (+150% instead of +100% faster).
    
  • Teammates now respawn much faster while this giant is active.
  
  
• Giant Kritzkrieg Medic changes:
  
  
  • Replaced the -10% damage penalty on the Crusader's Crossbow with a -25% damage penalty vs buildings (so the penalty no longer affects player damage).
    
  • Increased Kritzkrieg heal rate by +30%.
    
  • Reduced overheal bonus to +25% (from +50%).