"It would take at least 3 essays to summarize you mishael." -NetherDragons

Challenge Accepted.

I am very interested in TF2 balancing and am the creator of the Class Counter and Grouping guide and the Ultimate answers: series. I also (co-)run the group Balance Association, a very nice group dedicated to Balancing TF2 (Check it out!)


A guide to balancing:
A balanced weapon is best founded upon the following:
[list][*]A proper, well thought Concept and Theme set for the weapon
[*]Inexistance of Broken aspects about it, which includes:
[list][*]No Stun Mechanics
[*]No easy-to-achieve One-shot ability (The option to kill classes with 1 hit)
[*]No highly excesive speed gain that is persistant, and hence breaks hitboxes
[*]No self-targeting missiles, autocorrecting aiming, etc
[*]More things that you would understand are broken if you think about them and understand the game well.[/list]
[*]Power level properly balanced against Stock for All primary weapons, nearly all secondary weapons and Spy and Engineer (and maybe Sniper and Demoman) Melees, or Power level not too high (however high it apears to need to be) for other melee weapons
[*]Not overcomplicated; Preferebly (Highly preferebly) under 5 stats
[*]Not taking the spot of an existing weapon.
[/list]

To balance a weapon, you first set off to set a "Concept", "Theme" for it. In some cases it's Not too necessery, but in most cases you want to have that. That is the backbone of the weapon.

For instance- the direct hit's concept is "Direct Hit"- you hit directly with it.
The Soda Popper is the "Flying scout" scattergun. Jag is the "Build fast" wrench.
In our case- "Back Scatterer" is, like the direct hit, having the concept in the name. You deal good damage to the back.

Now, we pick our core stat or in rare cases stats. Those stats manifest the concept. Jag as an example: Faster building deployment while hit, and faster swing speed. In back scatterer's case, it's "Minicrits targets from the back at close range".

After we picket those, the rest of our stats are going to be Simple stats. Their job is to make sure the weapon's power level is balanced and that it isn't doing things it shouldn't. Jag as an example again: Less damage, less healing per swing, less damage to Sappers. In backscatterer's case it's Less accuracy and Less clip size.

Hence, since the Backscatterer already has an established Core Stat that is Minicriting targets from the back, it does NOT NEED any other "Unique" stat. It just ends up breaking it;s theme. What it needs is a small touch on it's core stats (And "Hidden" stats, such as the range from which it minicrits), like I presented.

I hope this helps you understand weapon balance better.

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