The cow mangler is a laser weapon for the soldier that instead of shooting rockets, it fires red/blu laser blobs, and when pressing right click at the cost of the entire clip, it shoots a GIGANTIC BLOB OF DEATH that disables buildings for 4 seconds, set's enemies on fire using the degreaser's fire damage output when it comes to afterburn damage seeing as this weapon's alt fire deals minicrit damage and set enemies caught in it on fire, and also it has infinite ammo. It's downsides are that, opposite to popular belief, the laser's it shoots are refelctable, it only deals 20% of the damage that the stock rocket laucnher would to buildings, it can NEVER crit, you can charge it with the kritzkrieg, you can use crit canteens, the thing will never budge and will never crit, and it has a lie hidden in it.

Upon starting off the game or just have not been focusing on the differentiality of the various rocket launchers, finding this weapon and giving it a go could give excitement for a fresh new player or feel like testing out a new pair of shoes for some players. Seeing that this monstrosity of a rocket launcher could give the wrong impression, I know it did to me when I first saw it. When seeing that it shoots mother-frocking lazers that could disable buildings and set enemies on fire does give itself a little bit polish but I wouldn't be a happy camper just yet.

Let's begin with the least obvious, THE WEAPON IS A LIE! Im sure not many people have heard of hidden stats, a good example would be the mannmelter, with its 30% slower firing speed. This weapon however is the most disgraceful one when it comes to it, this thing used to have a 5% reload penalty and it was "removed" in the July 10, 2013 patch, when in reality, it was never removed, its still there, they just made it into a hidden stat, meaning this weapon still sucks ass when it comes to the reload speed.
It just a lie, a facade to have people use this weapon more. Let's move to the rest of the issues with this thing, it's a fairly abusable weapon, this thing, when used with the base jumper+market gardener is disgusting. Since this thing is like the stock rocket launcher, it's atributes will pass to the soldier if he hits himself with it, this is no execption, when he hit's himself with the charged shot, he set;s himself on fire, and seeing that the base jumper is glitched in the way if someone is set on fire while using it, they float instead of slowly going down to the ground, its easy to see a soldier do this on purpose, so that he can hover, and get free kills on his market gardener, meaning the soldier can go on rapages easily.
Speaking of the charged shot, its hitbox is wonky, like the phlogistanator wonky, because hasnt anybody noticed that the phlog sometimes still get's you, even when outside of its range? Well this thing is the opposite, the thing looks GIGANTIC, but when you see it hit its opponents, it hit's less then what the model should, kinda giving this the same problems as the razorback, a weird hitbox, that doesn't comply with the weapon's use, in this case, weapon's shot model. A good example could be on a heavy/medic pair. You shoot the shot, the laser hit's, it looks like it spreads, but nope, the medic stay's perfectly fine while the heavy is now on fire. And then we have inconsistency, isn't it just a fine thing? Each laser weapon cannot have it's shot reflected, but this one can. The bison can't, the pomson can't but this can, meaning a pyro can easily defend a sentry nest of being disabled by a charged shot, by airblasting the shot back at the soldier, and maybe hitting him back and disabling the soldier's team's building's. I know it's something minor, but I always facepalm when im on a server and someone ask's "Pyro's can reflect Cow Mangler shots!?" And now we reach the thing that truly in my opinion breaks this weapon. Every laser weapon, with the exepction of the phlog, has an 80% damage penalty on building's. But it's what breaks this weapon. Rocket launcher's are weapon's supposed to obliterate sentry nest's when there are no demo's on the team, but since this thing has that damage penalty, it mean's if a soldier is using it, the enemy teams has sentries, and there is no demo, your team is boned. With weapon's there are always stat's that make or break this weapon, and this stats just completly OBLITERATES this weapon.

This weapon is hard to fix. It's stat's just make it a worse rocket launcher then the rocket jumper, and that thing doesn't even do damage, but it does it's purpose correctly, a rocket laucnher made to allow soldier's rocket jump without taking damage. I don't know what this thing's job is, and even then I dont WANT to know seeing as this thing feels like it's trying to do 20 job's at the same time and failing at all of them. Well first thing to fix this weapon would be to remove the stupid hidden stat, a 5% slower reload can be the difference between a good or bad weapon. This would really help seeing as it would allow the soldier to actually shoot faster because sometimes a soldier can enter a duel with another one, the cow mangler one run's out of ammo, and dies while reloading because of the penalty. The other thing to fix it could be making it non-reflectable. This could give soldier's more a purpose to use it seeing as it allows them to counter their main counter, pyro's. And finally, allow it to do crit's, if this could actually crit, I'm sure it would be used more in mvm, or at least competitive.

Thank you everybody for reading, and thanks to Captain for the help. I have been working hard to get these guides up and im glad to see you people actually like them, I feel like doing something different. I want you guys to decide the next broken review out of these three wep's, the one with most vote's is the next review
Pomson
Spy-cicle
Tomislav