[TF2] The Stun Wars

[@InternetMonster1]

This video feels like watching a Family Guy episode.

[@JohnDoe-in2gk]

thank you president roosevelt

[@totaltakeovergames7275]

kaluka is the only KZbinr I actively laugh at anymore. Mainly because he put a Sumerian curse of laughing on me 3 years ago

[@yuanwang9324]

i feel like you would really like ssethtzeentach

[@totaltakeovergames7275]

@@yuanwang9324 he never worked for me as well as I feel like he should, likely due to my time spent in the Congo working under Kolongo Nadiane and the physiological scarring I’ve had ever since

[@hunterkinsella5303]

I like the direction that tf2 went focusing more on knockback and how you can control it to be in your favor rather than hard cc

[@rickeyheard4454]

yeah. makes me realize how not fun overwatch is when one of the characters main fucking mechanics is a stun.

[@d.i.ch.1501]

Natasha, it is both stun and knockback.

[@hunterkinsella5303]

@@d.i.ch.1501 its a slow not a stun

[@smallman9787]

This is a tl;dw for the video

[@d.i.ch.1501]

@@hunterkinsella5303, it slows you to a speed of brass beast heavy.

[@_demonhunter]

thank you for the 18+ warning i was not ready to see tf2 footage

[@AJ-vq7im]

Huh?

[@_demonhunter]

@@AJ-vq7im 0:01

[@Casual_PKBeats]

As a Soldier main who gets salty and cries from air blast, I still actually really like interactions with Pyros in pubs. It's like a mind game, having to mix up my timing for when I shoot rockets at them, maybe sometimes even pretend I'm retreating and then flick a rocket onto them really quickly. Only thing I don't like is how I can't airstrafe out of the air blast lmao You notice this in competitive a lot too. Pyros being able to deny ubers really makes people have to think about who they use their ubers on. Hitscan (usually Scouts) need to be in on it or else the Pyro can deny them really well, and if the Pyro is dead then explosive classes (and Spy) can have a much easier time. It's a really good RPS system that makes the flow of gameplay interesting

[@Kobstar]

why not shoot the stock shotgun at them to counter the airblast that counters your rockets

[@simplysmiley4670]

@@Kobstar Because most soldier mains are terminally addicted to rocket jumping everywhere while wearing gunboats 24/7. Or they're running blackbox conch with a pocket medic GF. But yeah, when playing Pyro I do like going against soldiers and demos because then it becomes, as you said, mind games. Try and get the opponent to do what you want without fucking up yourself like said opponent wants you to.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@simplysmiley4670 pocket medic femboy*

[@gohort]

Please refrain from putting Paladins gameplay in your videos so that I may watch them in public without fear of someone thinking I play Paladins. Thank you.

[@shawermus]

Agreed

[@hulkwithagun9749]

Agreed tenfold

[@BurningSands_FGC]

Man I used to play paladins 😢😂

[@SadToffee]

alternatively, please continue adding HotS gameplay to your video so I can look like a cool hipster.

[@lordgrub12345]

Nah, palafins is just better ow rn

[@Cynidecia]

0:35 hold your horses honcho, i LIKE crowd control. i love it in MMO's like Everquest and city of heroes where it's a dedicated role and support classes are not just another healer.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

CC if done right is something like buffing teammates around you, or putting down a zone where you ge buffs, or an aoe DOT, that forces enemies to play around it a bit instead of just tanking. Storm in SC2 is crowd control because it forces your opponent to split to mitigate damage. Or guardian shield which buffs your units armor in a radius around a sentry. But then you have the Maelstrom ability in Brood War that just locks down a group of enemy units to get rekt without being able to retreat or fire back which imo are kinda bad, although its hype if someone pulls it off in a pro match on lan against a high level opponent. I dont play MMOs so I hope you understand my RTS analogy.

[@Generic_Doodles]

I fucking set this video to the highest quality I could just to read the tiers of the “which celebrity could survive on Venus?” Only to be met with a big “who fucking cares” I waste my time on the stupidest shit.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

I think its the meme with the troglodyte on one end and the 300iq megabrain wojack on the other end both saying "who cares" while the normie wojack in the middle writes a thesis on it

[@davidpettigians]

"pushing people into traffic is a lot of fun" -Kaluka

[@neilburns3121]

You are consistently one of my favorite TF2 youtubers. Really, every video you make is just well thought out, everything you bring up is relevant, and you have a great voice. Keep up the awesome work.

[@toophoot2757]

yea i especially like his voice mmm oh yea

[@d-boi9785]

I love watching what i think to be a harmless tf2 video and then suddenly getting blasted by something so out of pocket it puts ME to shame

[@thegreatdraco3923]

Airblast definably needs the mini-crit boost. Besides a reward for timing / predicting an incoming projectile and managing to actually hit someone with it (Which is much harder then it looks as the consistency between projectiles are numerous), damage falloff would negate any meaningful impact it would have on the attacker / defender. Otherwise, good video! The animated bits are top notch.

[@moronribbons5774]

Realistically it could just have the same anti-falloff effect applied as a separate effect to prevent it from doing too much damage up close, but to be fair that would also skew a lot of interactions - up close it can with a little bit of fire damage take almost all the health of a soldier but requires an excellent prediction from the pyro to pull off, and for a medic healing a soldier for example it places a lot more pressure on the soldier to aim his shot well up close since a proper reflect from the pyro could immediately kill his medic if not leave them critical. Sometimes it feels like overkill but other times (particularly either when someone is being med-healed, or against group spam which already makes nailing any reflect very hard and risky) it feels necessary to make reflecting at all worthwhile.

[@simplysmiley4670]

Yeah. And honestly that one kind of soldier player, who does nothing but spam down a chokepoint with his rockets with no care in the world, needs an incentive to learn that, for example, their secondary weapon slot exists and can hold something that isn't gunboats. It's even better when it shuts down soldier mains with their kritzkrieg pocket medic girflriend up their ass 24/7 by vibe checking either one of them, or both, with that soldier's own rocket.

[@NafedalbiFilms]

i feel like this video perfects the impression of not giving a shit with the most tightly written shit-giving behind the scenes, phucking phenomenal

[@GiRR007]

Isnt... being dead already a stun basically?

[@cibervader]

The ultimate CC

[@brain_cell]

i mean... ppl dont hate sniper for nothin

[@throwaway1184]

If sleep is basically death

[@tbotalpha8133]

It teleports you back to spawn. I'm not really joking - that's basically what "killing" someone in a game like TF2 is actually doing. You're removing the player from their current location, and sending them somewhere more convenient for you and your team.

[@kalukagamingfellaguy]

same result but dying is the punishment for being out played, CC on the other hand has the same effects but before you've made enough mistakes to warrant it

[@meanmole3212]

You know what else is not fun? Stunning viewer's ears with sudden, ridiculously loud noises

[@bigboypunch1422]

I love this guy and his vids. The fact that you put genuinly good jokes in your vids rather than just go full video essay is so nice. Your channel feels like the best version of all the "tf2 discusion channel"s out there. Keep making concent, I've watched every vid even if I dont know what I'm getting into!

[@TheSuperappelflap]

Its impressive how many awful jokes he can make without it being cringe or too random. Its maybe 5% miss and 95% hit. Dude should do standup.

[@stickmaneq]

nice thumbnail and sandman intro is also good

[@kalukagamingfellaguy]

ty

[@typicalgentleman]

I was quite stunned to see a Kaluka upload timed perfectly with my food.

[@BromineBlues-om7yf]

Are you also someone that watches long af video essays on yt with every meal?

[@Irish_Enderman]

​@@BromineBlues-om7yf "long af" 27 mins is not THAT long for a youtube video

[@BromineBlues-om7yf]

@@Irish_Enderman try the 8 hour FNAF lore breakdown bro 😎

[@Irish_Enderman]

@@BromineBlues-om7yf 8 hours is long, but I'm just saying that this video isn't

[@ravecat]

Heros of the storm mentioned !!

[@HellishSpoon]

They should make sand man able to reflect projectiles instead of launching the ball, it would be interisting skill based mechanic as long as its not spamable, and hey it still fits the base ball theme

[@gorshe74]

this truly is a kaluka klassic (patent pending)

[@traitor1836]

Thank you so much for your videos! The moment I start to feel sane and normal, I watch one of these and I'm right back to being miserable and mentally ill!

[@tasertag7513]

Awesome editing in this one. Even the really small details.

[@solarknight3942]

This is actually one of the bestest most insightful videos I have ever seen and I am not being sarcastic, holy shit dude this is so perfect. Using multiple medias to instill points, great examples and diving deep into them. It keeps me engaged with jokes. This is perfect I am amazed.

[@Cptn_Fabulous]

You've stated a big part of my opinion on stuns/CC, they should feel like a valid punishment for the player making a mistake or playing like an idiot. I treat stuns the same as instakills - getting headshot by a sniper can be annoying because it often happens out of nowhere, but if you get backstabbed or blown up by a sticky trap it's your fault for not maintaining the situational awareness to catch out the spy/trap and kill/defuse them/it.

[@Cinnamowo]

Honesty, if I joined TF2 nowadays I wouldn't care about sandman, but I had two years of memories before it was nerfed forever, and I miss it. I would love to use it somewhere on Class Wars tbh

[@moredinorno]

god i fucking love you sense of humor. legit whenever i feel down i just put one of your vids on and i actually feel better after. thanks and keep going mate

[@kalukagamingfellaguy]

Ty!

[@ShockedTaiLung]

The editing in this is so great

[@leaf_up]

Wow, this video's humor is so snappy! Not to mention just plain funny. That was really fun to watch! I loved the random tangents as well, I think I'll watch more now

[@mozzarella4140]

I love your voice, i could listen it for hours on the backround while im doing stuff on my pc, try expanding to video essays on other topics, love from germany !

[@v2hater3000]

19:31 GODDAMN THAT WAS SO LOUD I JUMPED OUTTA MY SEAT

[@cibervader]

This is a really good video, the only time I can think of where stuns are directly needed is when the game features select characters with significantly better movement options than anyone else to the point where you almost can't hurt them without hard CC. This is a rare case thou. I completely agree that knockbacks are way more interesting than stuns or slows.

[@arandomdog8586]

Ridiculously long respawn times also feel the exact same. For Honor is the worst offender for this, having respawns going into 50 seconds when your average life is around 30-120 seconds.

[@redactedoktor]

I like watching a Kaluka video and seeing the crack wear off as he gets closer and closer to the point.

[@babyyodaismysoda3924]

19:30 dont have sounds that are this loud please man, you scared the shit out of me

[@Suddsy11037]

agreed

[@justletmelistthese]

Sandman was sacrificed on the altar of casual-sweats, not even pickup-sweat, just common public sweat without a mic.

[@WSWC_]

Make the ball go 5-10% slower, give it REAL stun back. If you get a hit, it recharges a little bit faster but cant pick up the ball..ever

[@thelocaldinopimp165]

I really felt that guitar solo

[@SHANKONME]

thanks for putting the mod list in the description!

[@beckhamjenkins4798]

Great video, love the mtg shout out! I’m a stax player and I think control is so important when playing against a cedh deck

[@witchcrash3885]

simply do not get hit by the stun and you can continue to have "fun"

[@kalukagamingfellaguy]

oh so true, the best mechanics are the ones that are only good if you avoid ever having it happen

[@FelipeJaquez]

That would require things like strategy or counter play in a class based shooter. If I can't dominate a server unimpeded by playing the same way I always do then the game is broken and bad. Honestly they should remove dying next because having to constantly avoid it is unfun and unfair to me!

[@dexorne9753]

It's true though, CC has it's place, it makes engagements more strategy and gamkr knowledge focused rather than pure mechanical skill. It's not some kind of anti gameplay mechanic, it just changes the gameplay. That assumes of course that the game is built around CC as well.

[@witchcrash3885]

ya idk in th time ive played tf2 i can count on two hands th times iv even seen someone using a sandman, including back when it was way more powerdul and did a full stun, and i can count on one hand the amount of times the other player has landed it, like if u can avoid a pill u can avoid this dumb baseball. but its th shift to talking abt cc in mobas that really loses me. cc has literally always been apart of the gameplay and u learn 2 play around it. like baiting it out when you know the enemy has it and protecting ur teammates when they get hit by it, that's just learning how to play the games. if u think thats unfun maybe those games arent for u, its like sayin u love strategy games but hate managing a bunch of units and resources. i can at least agree that the sandman is a rly weird one but like wat, are we gonna get rid of airblast and the FaN too? remove knockback from rockets so u dont get bounced up in the air anymore, or just remove knockback entirely? i just do not understand or relate to the perspective of op, this was such a long video just to complain that u personaly are not having fun and claiming it a common sentiment. im actually having a lot of fun in case you were wondering

[@geckoking74]

I love your editing style so much :) I demand more

[@sadkefekaya6442]

19:25 This goes into the "funniest jokes made in a tf2 video" section 😂😂😂 So underrated too man!

[@sirlordcapybara801]

Nice Emrakul "sealed in the moon" reference at the start there.

[@saxeladude]

5:20 why is this not a complaint about fighting games too, that's a perfect definition of what a combo is?

[@nathaniel1207]

One thing as well with the holiday punch: jumping makes it much harder to get hit with since you can't be forced to taunt while jumping

[@brettbaker8497]

"Players can't just throw their entire decks at each other" I miss Alteil

[@kamikazejump5022]

Hey man are you MisterCaption?

[@sewerbeeferino]

that el maxo impression was spot on

[@jeefberky9101]

Came for the discussion, stayed for the guitar solo

[@inigo137]

Hi "Kaluka", would you mind a review on Starfield? No Todd, no masters style?

[@ShakerSilver]

Great vid, covers exactly why stuff like the Sandman and Natascha are frustrating and unsatisfying compared to other, more interactive forms of crowd control.

[@TSUNAMI_0707]

0:33 Phoenix in dota2 is literally the epitome of that and i fucking love playing him because of it

[@HiddenForbidden2]

23:37 I was Not expecting a OPTCG Reference in this video! Good shit! Anyway, 7k face.

[@kol5040]

that was a sick guitar solo kaluka can you come play at my middle school please

[@bunkerbuster4266]

There are 3 more stuns in TF2, but they're all taunts. Skewer (Huntsman taunt/stab stab stab), Spinal Tap (Ubersaw taunt/ I'm going to saw through your bones) and the Organ Grinder (Gunslinger taunt) are able to stun victims for 2.5 to 3.5 seconds, however the time to stun can range from 1 second, to 3 seconds depending on which taunt you use. Not to mention, all taunts can stun victims at 128 hammer units, making them quite short ranged.

[@-AAA-147]

I like this video more than the last one, the jokes felt like they tied into the script and topics better.

[@thewolfstu]

18:00 shout out to this fun fact: If you crouch you take more knockback, this is most effectively seen in the air, but it's due to the fact that when you crouch your hitbox shrinks changing the calculation for your mass making you lighter. If you crouch on the ground and approach a sentry it will attempt to knock you more down into the floor, but if you are in the air you are now Air-Heavy 1 lifting off.

[@Something_Disgusting]

This entire video went without mentioning a certain _other_ duo of Valve FPS games that have the best implementations of stunning players ever done in gaming. You could've even connected a section about one of these games' particular stun methods to Demo's shield charge knockback.

[@cognitiveAfflatus]

13:00 this is why we should remove the air-strafing stun on airblast thank you for coming to my ted talk

[@smallman9787]

Sounds nice to me but you'll have to argue with combo pyros

[@SaintRedFox]

unless combo pyros gave me 20 bucks for every combo kill they get why would i ever care about them@@smallman9787

[@the_multus]

25:20 I was thinking about that for my whole life

[@necroseus]

And here I am playing godforsaken Minecraft PVP which is entirely, fundamentally even, based on using knockback to control your opponents. Lmao I also think you need to tune your guitar, man. Good solo tho

[@hanswurst5109]

6:35 it gives you a permanent friendship debuff

[@D-N-0]

i know this little game called "Roboquest", great PVE high paced FPS with stuns. and "stuns" in question can be negated through build in mechanic of "MASH 1 RANDOM BUTTON 3 TIMES AND YOU WILL REGAIN CONTROL FASTER" which is already some form of counter play to stuns

[@captainblackbelt8880]

Doesn't crowd control usually refer to things that affect large amounts of people at once? (Hence the 'crowd')

[@wasdwazd]

After watching the video for roughly four minutes, I can say that the Holiday Punch is okay and was not nerfed because it's funny

[@ronanclark2129]

I'm not going to adopt your definition of "crowd control" but I agree with your points duder

[@ronanclark2129]

Stickybombs and engineer are too good at crowd control and too different from being something that slows you down

[@kalukagamingfellaguy]

That's not "my definition", that's been a definition used by games since the 90s

[@dexorne9753]

​@@kalukagamingfellaguy area control and denial is also CC

[@Michael-f9f4d]

Damn that guitar solo was insane

[@onemoreoiw4397]

Literally anything can wait when Kaluka uploads a new video

[@krackkorn6324]

4:08 jokes on you I have ad block

[@ichabodthecrane]

Tf2 is smart enough to acknowledge that getting dicked over from range with little to no counterplay is violently unfun. Unfortunately, that means we got a stun removed while the class that gets to get a free kill from crossmap/spawn every .3 seconds largely remains a problem.

[@iminumst7827]

This reminds me of a hilarious moment I had last year where I was playing on a server and me and 2 other heavies on my team were running Holiday Punch. And we kept owning this noob on the other team who was screaming in text chat stuff like "WHY AM I LAUGHING?!" And I would respond like "Because we tickled you" and he would say "NO! tell me the real reason!" I agree that Crowd Control isn't necessarily bad. In-fact, TF2 without crowd control would be a less interesting game. Bad Crowd Control is one that removes all agency and it makes no difference if you just take your hand off the keyboard. Good Crowd Control limits some options but leaves others open. For example, in TF2 a soldier turns a corner into an enemy. The Soldier hits the target in the feet knocking them into the air limiting his options, but every class can dodge the incoming follow-up shot with good airstrafing, and some classes have an additional option: Scout's doublejump, Pyro's airblast, Engineer's Short Circuit, Heavy's Fists of Steel, etc. Not only does TF2 give you options against all crowd control, it also sometimes can be used to your advantage. Medics can surf an enemy rocket away from danger. An even more impressive feat is surfing off a Lvl3 Sentry Gun's damage to rocket across a big map. Not to mention the rare but hilarious CC strat of body blocking a jump over a death pit as a cloak and dagger spy. The reasons stuns are so popular and even necessary in MOBAs and Fighting games is because of the slow TTK. That means, getting a followup attack isn't the end of the fight. But in a game like TF2 where the game is balanced around 2-hit ideal ttk, then one hard stun completely shuts down the fight.

[@Krcun774]

19:30 That gun sound scared the shit out of me

[@MatthewChovanec-UNT]

that gunshot was so fucking loud lmao

[@GiantShoutmonTM]

That ending was so perfect lmao

[@ricca517]

You’ve convinced me that the stun shouldn’t exist on the sandman anymore. I just missed how it was used for a clever combo now.

[@panofnoodlez1377]

Love the videos, did you get inspiration from Raccoon eggs on the style?

[@smersmer1855]

What kind of HUD/visual settings do you use? I’ll watch the video but that Loose Cannon effect has me on my knees

[@kalukagamingfellaguy]

updated the description with them

[@michaeljonathan9715]

"Holiday Punch isn't nerfed to the oblivion" Clealry you haven't heard the obscure MvM specific nerf that make the *only upside completely removed* at least for giant robots, not properly nerf it without making it useless like making the bots know how to counter it like human players do, making the user have to do something harder than backstab as heavy (eg. Do it again 3 times in a row for the effect to kick in or adding more downside like damage vulnerability for MvM only) or making stun less longer or punishing like sapper's stun, just *complete removal of the only upside*. At then that one gas passer upgrade, that one godspot in big rock and other broken strategies exists.

[@michaelschlem2849]

3-26-24 The idea of people not liking stun mechanics reminds me of the reason why Masahiro Sakurai made Super Smash Bros the way he did, except replacing "stun mechanics" with "combos".

[@Bun_McByuun]

it's part of why i enjoy FFXIV's PVP- moreso the 5v5 Crystal Conflict instead of the cluster fuck that is Frontline (3 teams of 24 players) where many classes have a stun, but every class has access to a skill called Purify which not only removes most of the stuns upon use, but gives a 5 second window in which you cannot be stunned by one of those types of stuns. The limiting factor is that it has a 30 second cooldown so if you manage to escape 1 stun, then you have 25 seconds where you cannot escape another, and in the small maps of Crystal Conflict, the chance are high that you'll get fudged by another stun. Given this, I'd say stuns can be balanced only if there are plenty of ways to stun as well as a dedicated, all class method, of removing a stun with a cooldown. In the heat of battle, you can still get stunned and be ganked before you can hit Purify or Protect, so it does not invalidate them outright, you can also use stuns on fleeing players, and if you are a fleeing player, you better have not used purify before or else you're slurping up that Dark Knight's salted earth.

[@saxeladude]

19:40 control when designed well never makes a player more powerful than geometric hazards. as control basically is in fps games the ability for a player to edit the map. that's what building in fortnite, viper in valorant, and chess have in common. also one of the biggest parts of the controller arcetype that's missed is that it's so bad because it requires better game sense to win. it's not make an exploit and abuse it that's cc; but instead find an existing exploit and nest in it so the enemy always has to work with less resources from the start, essentially building a base under their skin like a parasite.

[@BooneBluemel]

We know it's you, Caption. We need fallout 76 and starfield reviews from you

[@jeffus3110]

1:31 I hate raising canes I’ve been there multiple times and their chicken is wetter than my homies sloppy toppy in the back of math class

[@MisterIX09TF2]

I like eating mud. So don't knock it, boy.

[@Dupaz]

Does anyone know what hud is being used in the tf2 gameplay? Looks familiar and I'm trying to find the name.

[@philismenko]

You should do more guitar stuff! That solo was amazing

[@twpsyn]

I would agree about airblast if valve didnt give it an infinite movement stun for the entire duration of you being airborne. pre-2017 it stunned you for .5 seconds, meaning that you could air strafe away from their flares like you can dodge every other airshot in the game. but these days pyro right clicks and disables your ability to air strafe. it feels like a step back in what was a more nuanced interaction

[@topnorth-oj5lg]

0:37 the sandman makes you are a sad man

[@wovenowl7535]

1:30 Grohk shown, video good, new subscriber gained

[@Type_blazenil]

Stuns are pretty good in garden warfare, I think it's because they're more of a boop

[@theradman9478]

Cyber plays Lucas. Kaluka. - see me after class

[@Sypitz]

The Silver timeline Sandman does nothing with its ball for 99.5% of the game

[@DrJay-vd9tf]

I didn't mind being stunned.

[@CWOFFEE]

-rep you forgot the third component of the airblast discussion tax: the stunlock that prevents you from doing cool fun airstrafes

[@browniegp9762]

waaaa i cant airstrafe - me when i get airblasted into the sky and hit by a crit flare

[@Woodglue1]

I think the best way its been done is in garden warfare with the hypno shrooms. They dont slow you down or stun you, but only make it harder to move. Along with this the only two ways you can do this are overall weaker than other options (as in damage, hp, duration)

[@Spika94]

The Sandman being overpowered (or whatever) is vastly exaggerated. That thing couldn't stun for shit and if it did, your target was on the other side of the globe. I hate that it was nerfed, because it was just a fun weapon. I never found it annoying to play against either.

[@trunguss]

You had to be across the map to get an actual stun, and from a rather large distance for the no weapon effect. And even then, if you happened to be too close for that weaker stun, it'd last for like barely a quarter of a second. You needed to be quite far away for the stun to be annoying. IDRC for the stun tho tbh, I just want my guillotine combo back or reworked.

[@user-bkey]

26:19 has to be the worst facestab i've ever seen LOL

[@StoneKnight1]

if you get hit first you are usually in losing position, so does it matter if you just take the damage and unalive or be stuned for 5 more seconds and be unalive anyway? of corse asuming hiting stunn requires same or more skill to land than dealing damage

[@andreasottohansen7338]

God, I always hated the name "crowd control" for status effects. What crowd is being controlled by a single target effect?