Oh snap, 80% faster movement? Sick.

This new rocket launcher could be awesome :)

Sounds like you have to be really precise with it to cause any damage, but the much faster speed should help a lot with that. And the mini-crit on airborne targets should feel very rewarding :)

PS: Oh, and the war margin is decreasing... just about 3% now, I wonder if Valve is fucking with us or if it's actually real...

edit - wow, can you imagine those rockets flying at double the speed? must be awesome!

I'd guess one of three theoreis

1) Valve screwing with us.

2) Shield and Sword boosted enthusiasm

3) Players who usually don't play Soldier or Demoman have given up interest and are sick of playing those classes.  Soldiers are easier to play then Demos for new people unless the new people have the patience to turtle. 

This Direct Hit is just a skullfuck to heavies =(

Why? It only increases damage by 25%. Heavies have plenty of health and usually a medic with them.

It also shoots a hell of a lot faster.  So upon being hit by that first rocket he has less time to react before being blown to pieces.  Heavies don't perform well against any decent soldier as it is, this just looks to even worsen that. 

No, the firing rate should be the same. Each rocket gets there faster, but the interval between them is the same.

You have less time to dodge the first rocket, after getting hit once you have the same amount of time to escape the second. Furthermore, it's easier to escape a rocket, as the blast radius is greatly reduced.

With 80% faster rocket movement, there is no way in hell a heavy dodge anything.  They move like grease sliding down a window pane. 

Bah, I looked but couldn't find the small cartoon showing the plethora of counters for heavies.  This IMO, is to be added.

If the soldier is very near a heavy with no medic, and the heavy doesn't have the minigun revved up, the heavy is fucked of course. But that is already the case now.

At long range, what I said in my previous post still stands. The soldier has to be much more precise to hit the heavy once, and it's not hard to dodge later rockets as you have to move less than before due to the 70% smaller blast radius.

Yes, it's even more so the case now though, even though a heavy should excel short-mid range. 

At long range neither the heavy or the soldier will be getting much of anything done (even since they reduced the minigun spread).  The soldier however will be able to area deny the heavy because of the rocket speed.  I see this rocket launcher as a direct target for heavies, it will be much more difficult to hit smaller and faster targets.  The heavy however is the slowest, and the largest target in game.

Edit: Someone worked out it will be moving faster than an uncharged huntsman arrow (also faster than the sandman ball) without having any arc.