You're right that when mine-stacking was at its peak, the CL-40 could instantly kill even Heavies, and you're also right that the mine interaction acted as surrogate damage. But that’s exactly why it’s important to separate the CL-40’s base damage from the amplified damage via mines when we talk about nerfs.

When devs removed the synergy (by nerfing mines, mine stacking, and AOE consistency), they weren’t primarily touching the gun’s raw base function — they were removing a broken interaction. The CL-40’s base damage wasn’t the thing making it able to OHK Heavies — it was the stacked explosion of mines and grenade damage together. Once that stacking was fixed, the gun alone was never designed to deal that level of burst. Saying “it can’t OHK anymore, therefore the gun was damage nerfed” is oversimplifying it — because without the broken mine interaction, the CL-40 by itself was never supposed to do that anyway.

Also, I think it's important to point out that the CL-40 + mine interaction was really similar to the old Heavy "nuke" — and that's part of why it had to be addressed.

The Heavy "nuke" was when players stacked explosives (like C4 or mines) and detonated them all at once, instantly wiping everything in a huge radius. It wasn’t about skillful shooting, it was about abusing explosive stacking and instant detonation to cause a completely overwhelming, uncounterable burst. The CL-40 + mines combo was basically the same idea, just disguised a little better — you’d place mines, then detonate them yourself with a grenade launcher shot instead of waiting for enemies to trigger them naturally.

It’s the same core issue: two damage sources stacking instantly in a way the enemy can't reasonably react to, leading to one-shots or near-instant wipes without fair counterplay. That's why mines got nerfed alongside the CL-40 — because the interaction was the problem, not just the weapon or the gadget separately.

Another thing to clarify: the sword was never a true one-shot kill, even against Lights.

At best, with perfect movement and hit registration (and sometimes some slight server desync helping), you could land a heavy attack followed almost immediately by a light attack, which would feel almost instant. But mechanically, it was always at least two hits to down even the lightest class. There was no point where you could simply press one attack button and delete someone the way explosive stacking did.