New Team Fortress 2 Classes

I will admit, in my darkest moments, to having played an undue amount of Team Fortress 2 recently. I'm finally starting to understand how to play the Spy, and massively enjoying both the Demoman and Pyro classes - so much so, I go through alternate phases of each. I'll begrudgingly go Engineer or Medic if the team hasn't got the right mix of roles, although Engineers bore me now, and Medics are just score whores. Gravel Pit seems to bring the Soldier out in me. And half the time on Well, I'll go Sniper and rush.

I just can't play a Scout.

The balance of classes in TF2 is meticulous and has come about due to man years of playing and play testing until each class is like a fine wine or liquor in the right hands

Since there's nothing like a game design challenge, I'd like you come up with some new classes to mess with the game. Valve, are you listening? If you don't want to spoil yourself reading my ideas, stop now and jump to the comments section of this post where you can put in your contributions

My suggestions are based on a number of observations. Firstly, there are no Hispanic, Asian or Middle Eastern characters in the game. Tread carefully here - we don't want to play to stereotypes. I'm going to borrow ideas liberally from other class based games. In particular, if you haven't played the Half-Life 2 mod Dystopia, you need to - just to check out the weapon selection which seems to have inspired TF2 and Halo 3

The Cowboy

Ethnicity: Mexican
Weapon 1: Self-loading rifle

The self-loading rifle is a low damage, fast firing, long range weapon, that ricochets off the target it hits and does damage to a second enemy as well. This allows you to hit people around corners - do more damage in crowds etc.

Weapon 2: Pair of revolvers

The pair of revolvers are supremely accurate. You only have to tag a target with the first shot, and then you can keep shooting, and the enemy will be hit, even if they move out of line of sight. Left-click to fire left revolver, right-click for right.

Weapon 3: Knuckle dusters

Reason to live: Anti-scout and to an extent anti-sniper/anti-engineer. And it can't hurt to have another newbie class where accuracy isn't a factor


The Ninja

Ethnicity: Japanese

Weapon 1: Shuriken

Short range throwing stars. Enemies get poisoned by the shuriken - as if they are on fire, except water cannot put it out.

Weapon 2: Grappling hook.

If the grappling hook hits an enemy (but not a building), the enemy is pulled towards the Ninja at high speed. If the grappling hook hits a wall or building, the Ninja is pulled towards it at high speed.

Weapon 3: Katana

Special Ability: Smoke bomb.

Right-click to drop a smoke bomb at the Ninja's feet. The smoke bomb fills a corridor or roughly 1/3rd of a capture point with line of sight blocking smoke. Enemies get poisoned moving through the smoke - as if they are on fire, except water cannot put it out. The Ninja becomes temporarily invisible and insubstantial for a few seconds afterwards - as per the spy, but they can move through enemies and enemy buildings as well. The smoke dissipates after about 5-10 seconds.

Special ability: Wall and water run

Ninja's can jump near walls or while in water to run on walls or water for a short space of time.

Reason to live: There are enough crazies in TF2 who go melee only, to justify a melee specific class.

Scientist

Ethnicity: Old
Weapon 1: Laser

See Dystopia laser. Or Spartan laser. Alternately, see Tesla gun in Dystopia for another crazy scientist like weapon implementation that doesn't replace the sniper rifle.

Weapon 2: Jet pack

The jet pack allows the scientist to fly, up to the a height ceiling allowed in the map. See Natural selection for the specific jet pack implementation - it's fun.

Weapon 3: Cattle prod
Weapon 4: X-ray glasses

These allow the scientist to see through walls, letting them see enemies and buildings nearby. They also see through spy disguises.

Reason to live: With all the crazy 50s science lab locations, the scientist is sorely lacking as a playable character. The scientist is another rush type character. With the Spartan laser, they become an even more annoying individual than scouts, and people will scream l33t hacks. With the Tesla gun implementation, they become an extremely good anti-scout rush character. Note that by having the jet pack as a weapon choice, scouts still can out maneuver scientists.

Priest

Ethnicity: Syrian
Weapon 1: Hand cannon

Think scout gun but shorter range, more damage. Or play with the Basilisk in Dystopia, against lights.

Weapon 2: Stun Grenade Launcher

A grenade launcher with stun effects. But it restricts anyone stunned to their melee weapon, for about 3-5 seconds.

Weapon 3: Bible

Reason to live: Because there aren't enough biblical quotes in the game.

Comments welcome.

[Update: Apparently Valve are 'still pursuing' the idea of new Team Fortress 2 classes. So there is hope.]